Despite being arrested in Romania on charges of sex trafficking, British influencer Andrew the real world state maintains an enormous following among young men. He’s a big fan of showing off his luxury cars, private jets and other assets in videos that he posts on social media. His followers often see him as an arbiter of truth who’s standing up against the “matrix.”

From Dreams to Reality: Embracing Challenges and Opportunities in the Real World

Earlier this year, VICE News started tracking how Tate and his company The Real World — also known as Hustler’s University — was scamming vulnerable youth online. The app allows members to earn a commission by aggressively promoting the site. They do so by flooding TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube with repurposed content from Tate along with a signup link. When people click the links, the member who posted the video gets 48 percent of the sales commission.

In the course, members learn to use video editing, marketing and AI tools to create social media clips that are then used to promote The Real World on their own accounts. Once they’ve built up enough of a following, they’re given the right to post “affiliate” links that earn them a small percentage of sales commission on every new member that joins through their link.

Pope worries that The Real World is acting as a gateway into a pipeline of radical misogyny and sex trafficking, with kids recruited to the program being upsold into courses at the War Room — Tate’s forum where he trains people to run camgirl operations — with the goal of sex-trafficking women.