* Lead image posed by model
I’m in Las Vegas, and one of the only women in a room packed with hundreds of men.
On stage, is masculinity influencer known as El Temach. He’s speaking quickly in Spanish, spouting some concepts I recognise from the Andrew Tate-style influencers in the West, calling people ‘simps’ or ‘alphas’, adapting the messaging for his Latin American audience.
He paces back and forth as his fans cheer.
“The vagina hypnotizes!” the influencer says on stage, warning men of trusting women.
The crowd erupts.
Everyone's clicking on...
I’m at the second stop on his 30 date world tour. Combining motivational speeches, with an engaged audience Q&A, this show is his social media content coming to life. As Latin America’s biggest manosphere influencer, tickets are selling fast. I feel uncomfortable as fans in the crowd glance at me – as one of the few women in attendance, I stand out.
Tall, in his late thirties, bald and with a thick beard, El Temach visually ticks many a typical manosphere influencer box. He sips from a beer one of his fans left on the stage for him, “Being a whore is not a phase.”
He’s connecting with Latin American followers in a moment when Mexico and many other countries are experiencing rapid social change, having recently welcomed its first female president and legalised abortion. It should be a positive, but for many of the young men in attendance we spoke to, El Temach has helped them through as they’ve felt lost, depressed and unsure of their place in a new world.
Unlike fans of the Western influencers, El Temach fans meet offline. They wear chains with the influencer’s branding which they say represent their hard work and commitment, exercise in outdoor gyms together, calling themselves the ‘Iron brothers’, and they even pay for El Temach ‘baptisms’, a quasi-religious ritual where the fan promises to follow his teachings.
El Temach is one of many Andrew Tate copycats cropping up around the world, making huge profits from young (mostly) male followers. Over the past year, I’ve been reporting from inside the global manosphere, spending time with influencers, their followers, and the women whose lives are often constrained by their ideas.
For years, we’ve been trying to unpick why some men are drawn into the manosphere’s false promises, including the idea that they must fit an ‘alpha’ ideal, in order for financial success and women to follow.
But what happens to the women around them when this messaging is absorbed? And how do these Andrew Tate-like figures morph and change around the world?
A global ripple effect
In Mexico City I met Fernanda, a doctor in her mid-twenties. She told me when her ex became obsessed with El Temach, his treatment towards her changed. He forbade her from having male friends and single female friends, believing they would encourage her to be promiscuous.
Eventually, the relationship turned violent, she says. He trapped her in a room, locked the door and forced her to watch hours of El Temach’s content, telling her: “I’m not doing anything wrong, you’re the one who’s wrong.” Eventually he let her go, but not before threatening to kill her.
Fernanda’s experience is sadly not unique. In Kenya, I met two young university students, Joy and Viraah. Young men at their university actively avoid them because, according to the popular manosphere-pushing influencer here, Andrew Kibe “females aren’t friends”.
Like El Temach, Kibe has adapted his message locally, alongside his anti-feminist diatribes he speaks to the issues men face in Kenya, such as high unemployment and changing social status, while supporting the Gen Z protests against the current government.
Speaking to these intelligent, driven women I was shocked to see how some of the young men dismissed them. One young fan of Kibe, Ryan, who also studied at the university told me women are simply there to meet a rich man.
It couldn’t be further from the truth – but for Joy and Viraah, working towards careers in Public Health and Computer Security respectively, and many other women we spoke to, it was a criticism they were used to.
I first met Andrew Kibe in 2025, after he amassed a huge following with diatribes targeting women, labelling them liars and gold diggers. I asked him how he responded to critic’s claims that his content was misogynistic. He was blunt, accusing me of being “woke” and lecturing me on how misogyny didn’t exist.
I asked if respect could go both ways.
“How can I respect a woman I want to sleep with?” he said. “When I look at you, I see a sexual being.”
I have never had someone speak to me like this, but it was clear the answer to my question, at least in Kibe’s eyes, was a hard no. As we joined Kibe and his all-male crew on their tour, I felt unwelcome, out of place, while my male colleagues were more tolerated.
In our final confrontation, Kibe told me women wear short skirts “so men drool at you”, while his all-male crew watched on, snickering behind the cameras. In one instance Kibe also catcalled a university student, as his crew laughed along.
These attitudes have penetrated deeply into the psyche of their young male followers. Like figures in the West, these influencers weave misogyny with narratives of self-improvement and for the young men who follow, it’s almost unavoidable online.
Much like Ryan who lives in Kenya, Julián, a 19-year-old in Mexico, also calls himself a fan of El Temach – both agreed to share unrestricted access to their social media histories, including thousands of posts that they’d liked or commented on, allowing an unprecedented insight into their personal journeys into the manosphere.
Julián was only 16 when he started using his Instagram. At first the content that drew him in was innocuous: cars, fitness, and self-improvement, including tips on how to be more social, or how to dress better. It took just a few months for him to like an El Temach video about male empowerment. Julián, who was struggling to make friends and talk to girls, his messaging clearly hit home.
After liking just one El Temach reel in April, he started to engage with hundreds more videos a month. It started with similar motivation and self-improvement tips, before sliding into more overtly misogynistic themes.
For Ryan, his algorithm initially couldn’t have been more different. His ‘For You’ page was catholic TikToks, Kenyan trends such as dance routines, and skits. Then, a Kibe podcast was recommended. From there, Kibe’s more misogynistic rants flooded his algorithm.
As I watched post after post, I saw how the videos in their feeds became more dominated by the manosphere. Seeing their every like, save and comment I was watching these young men become entranced by the content, one post at a time.
Ryan and Julián – two young men at opposite sides of the world – yet they both had this content dominate every aspect of their feeds.
When I spent time with the fans, what struck me was how both young men harboured resentment towards women under a polite surface. Julián, who welcomed me into his home, told me women share some responsibility if they are abused. When I looked through his social media data, I saw his comments where he called women whores, his darker side apparent.
Although the influencers are brazen, meeting their many fans across continents, who can easily hide their beliefs, has left me deeply worried: never have young men and women been more divided – and it’s a concerning sign of the times when we must question whether or not the guys we are speaking to even view us as human.
Back at the show, fans get up to ask questions of El Temach. They tell him of the hardships they’ve faced, and ask him about their dilemmas with women. He advises that women are manipulative. They nod along in agreement, taking in his every word.
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Watch BBC Eye's investigation 'Manosphere Messiahs' on BBC iPlayer or YouTube. Listen to the podcast here or on your audio streaming service of choice.
