Trigger warning: Extreme misogyny, queerphobia, and Islamophobia
On September 1, 2024, self-proclaimed incel spicy_since_99* sent me a direct message on X. It was a warning, that if I kept “coping” for The News Minute, Wire, and “other leftist” websites, the “mullah” will come to my door, put a sword to my neck, and tell me to “convert or get [raped].”
If you have read part one of our series on the troubling world of the Indian manosphere and its grip on teenage boys, you may remember spicy_since_99. He first contacted me after I posted on X in 2024, looking for young men who were drawn into the misogynistic online world shaped by influencers like Andrew Tate.
Both via our messages and public posts, he claimed that women make bad decisions because they think with their “lizard brains,” that they should be treated like “spiritual toddlers,” and that their “only real agency is their sexuality.” All this, while insisting that incels like him do not want to subjugate women and only wanted “true love.”
Incels, short for “involuntarily celibate,” are men who blame feminism, women, and modern society for their lack of sexual or romantic success.
The online world spicy_since_99 inhabits is referred to as the manosphere — a loose online ecosystem of influencers, forums, and channels that frames feminism and gender equality as threats to men.
Though we hadn’t spoken since August 2024, he sent that direct message out of the blue — perhaps provoked by one of my posts. This time, the misogyny was combined with religious bigotry.
To some, all of this might sound like fringe internet angst. But the incel ideology has increasingly been linked to acts of real-world extremist violence, including mass shootings and targeted attacks.
Its fragile, yet persistent ideology also connects seemingly contradictory worlds.
spicy_since_99, who once warned me about the so-called “Islamic takeover of Kerala,” is by his own admission a follower of Andrew Tate.
In 2022, a British-American ‘influencer’, Tate had famously converted to Islam, twisting aspects of the religion to push a hypermasculine view of faith and gender.
This is how online misogyny turns dangerous. It’s no longer just angry men venting online. It has become a fast-evolving political project that crosses borders, draws from multiple religions and ideologies, and demands a return to patriarchal order — sometimes by force. In part two of this series, we speak to those who have embraced this world, and those who have been harmed by it.
We examine how digital adaptations of faiths, from evangelical Christianity to Islam to Hindutva, are increasingly becoming battlegrounds where masculinity is equated with dominance, and women’s autonomy is treated as a threat.
Tate and the co-opting of Islam
Tate, one of the biggest names in the manosphere universe, built his brand on a mix of wealth flexes, gym-bro posturing, and overt hate.
He has claimed that women should “bear some responsibility” for being raped, that “virgins are the only acceptable thing to marry,” and that women who do not want children are “miserable, stupid b***hes.” He now faces a string of serious legal proceedings across Europe and the United States, including charges of rape, human trafficking, and leading an organised crime group.
After Tate converted to Islam, he repeatedly called it "the last true religion," praising its strict moral boundaries and adherence to scripture, and even calling upon Christians to convert.
He has also often contrasted it to Christianity and other religions, which he claims have become too watered down. But those who knew him behind the scenes suggest this shift had more to do with optics than belief.
According to a former member of Tate’s marketing team, who worked closely with him, the switch was entirely strategic. “He’s not actually Muslim,” the former employee told The News Movement. “It’s just because he’s in Dubai. He wants to be friends with all the sheikhs and stuff.”
When the employee asked Tate directly if he was a Muslim, Tate allegedly replied, “Well, kind of not really. I'm just doing it because I’m in the UAE and it’s good for public perception.”
This rebrand was largely successful. By aligning himself with Islam, Tate tapped into a massive online audience of traditionalist Muslim boys and men, especially in regions like South Asia and the Gulf, who began to see him as a masculine figurehead pushing back against feminism and Western liberalism.
Zul Qarnain*, a 26-year-old scholar from Chennai, said he saw this radicalisation towards Tate firsthand while tutoring teenage Muslim boys in Tamil Nadu. Many of his students, from relatively privileged, internet-connected households, were quietly becoming fans.
“They were just in 8th and 9th grades,” he recalled.