Ryan Broderick

And I think it is happening as we speak.

I think this is all shifting because everyone has figured it out, which is that the key to virality is to pay attention.

So Adam and I, our intrepid researcher, we're trying to put a date.

We become obsessed with...

figuring out periods of time.

Like when was the first thing that would count as the thing we're talking about?

Andrew Tate is probably the first Clipper.

In 2022, he creates a moral panic in the UK because he has this fan club called Hustlers University.

And he's like making the fan club pay him for the privilege to share his clips on TikTok.

And what that does is like very specific to TikTok.

So TikTok...

is obsessed with um like trends or it used to be i don't we don't really have enough data yet on us tick tock to know if it's operating the same way but tick tock classic it it wasn't really concerned with like massive viral videos like it wasn't really trying to create like a

Gangnam style.

What it was trying to do was create a trend where everyone would participate in a Gangnam style.

So Andrew Tate's Clippers accidentally caused Andrew Tate to be recognized by the algorithm as a trend.

It sort of recognized like, oh...

Andrew Tate is some sort of thing that people are participating in because this algorithm doesn't have any thoughts or feelings.

It doesn't understand.

Like Andrew Tate was a dance.

I think that's exactly the right way to think about it.