How Miami became a hub for ‘manosphere’ influencers like the Tate brothers

Andrew and Tristan Tate, who were recently arrested outside a Miami concert venue on new rape charges in the UK, aren’t the only controversial online personalities who have chosen Miami as home.

In fact, in the past few years, a growing number of influencers who built lucrative brands around hypermasculinity, dating advice and provocative political and social commentary about women have set up shop in Miami. From the Tate brothers, who built an empire off “cam girls,” to the hosts of Miami-based “Fresh & Fit” to influencer Clavicular, they’re live-streaming in clubs, paying for plastic surgery to enhance their physical attractiveness — also known as “looksmaxing” — or filming themselves approaching women on the street.

Critics call it the “manosphere,” and it is alive and well in the Magic City.

READ MORE: Choked to unconsciousness: New accusations against Tate brothers emerge in Miami court

Journalist Louis Theroux’s recent documentary “Inside the Manosphere,” which debuted on Netflix in March, showed how Tate acolytes and other like-minded online influencers have either moved to Miami or regularly stop in to make content. Researchers who study online extremism say the brothers are only the highest-profile faces of a much larger ecosystem that has quietly taken root in South Florida.

These content creators rarely respond to their critics, who accuse them of cult-like, radicalizing behavior focused on dehumanizing others. Instead, these influencers harness that criticism to invigorate their fan bases, using controversies to — they claim — make thousands through selling books, online classes and viewership revenue from popular social-media sites.

Media Matters’ Research Director Kayla Gogarty said oftentimes these influencers lure young men into more extreme content.

“You see them going to the UFC fights. They’re showing clubbing. They’re doing video games. They’re talking about these ‘get rich quick schemes,’” she said. “That’s a really good entry point for young men to come across that content… but then they get taken into the more extreme content and see more extreme rhetoric that they probably weren’t actively seeking out.”

And increasingly, a lot of that activity has happened in Miami.

Experts point to a mix of factors fueling Miami’s appeal: its influencer economy, nightlife, booming tech scene, favorable tax climate and carefully cultivated image of glamour and excess. Together, they say, those elements make the city an ideal backdrop for creators selling young men a vision of success built on money, status and control over women. But if you ask one of these influencers why Miami, they’ll tell you that it’s just the place to be.

Braden Peters, the 20-year-old “looksmaxxer” influencer known as Clavicular, began spending a lot of time in Miami last year, even co-owning a nightclub at one point. He recently livestreamed his nose job from celebrity plastic surgeon Dr. Michael Salzhauer, also known as “Dr. Miami”.

Peters’ spokesperson, Mitchell Jackson, told the Miami Herald that “new media,” like his client, are flocking to Florida.

“Clav moved here because Miami is now where you move to become a streamer,” he said. “Kids used to move to Hollywood to be a star. Now they move to Florida.”

Leading the charge

While many of these “manosphere” influencers’ rise to fame began in the past few years, Rachael Fugardi, senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center, said it was Andrew Tate’s initial brand that led to their surging popularity.

“Andrew Tate kind of helped revitalize this but made it bigger,” she said, adding that influencers also use other topics like working out, making money or dating advice to appeal to young men. “They use this as a pipeline to their more extreme content, and so young men think that they are offering them something when they’re kind of being radicalized into this much more extreme worldview.”

The Tate brothers have spent a decade amassing tens of millions of followers online as they share content targeted that often dehumanized women and positioned themselves as alpha males. Their lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.

A self-proclaimed billionaire, Andrew has used his controversial remarks online to funnel his audiences to pay for an instruction program in which he teaches money-making strategies. In one of these programs, the SPLC said, Andrew directed his followers to purposely create controversial content to manipulate social-media algorithms. The SPLC says the Tate brothers’ content radicalizes and manipulates young men.

The brothers’ move to South Florida in 2025 was quickly followed by their collaborations with other like-minded social media influencers in Miami. “Inside the Manosphere” highlighted several Miami connections in this world: Tate associate Justin Waller spent time living in a luxury rental in Miami, polarizing political and cultural streamer Sneako relocated to Miami, “lifestyle coach” Stirling Cooper is in Miami as are the hosts of the “Fresh & Fit” podcast. The other two influencers profiled in the documentary — Harrison Sullivan and Ed Matthews — both live in England.

Miami is also home to Peters, the influencer whose sudden stardom — including profiles in the New York Times, GQ and the Miami New Times — has brought the “looksmaxxing” lingo to the mainstream. Peters rose to fame through his extreme efforts to change his appearance, suggesting his audience of young men to follow in his footsteps.

He has claimed to have hit his facial bones with a hammer to fracture them and force them to heal in different shapes. He has also admitted on his social media to using testosterone injections and methamphetamine in an alleged effort to manage weight. His content is primarily centered on displaying his wealth, routines for optimizing his appearance and flaunting his A-list connections by meeting or collaborating with known artists and athletes, including boxer Jake Paul and NBA player Lonzo Ball.

Peters’ spokesperson disputes including his client in the “manosphere” ecosystem, though.

“Clav is the world’s leading looksmaxer and one of the top streamers,” he said. “Only someone without knowledge of the industry would call him a part of the ‘manosphere.’”

Peters’ time in South Florida, however, has been marked by incidents. Originally from New Jersey, he moved to Miami last year and at one point co-owned Bacara, a Miami Beach nightclub that caters to content creators, according to the Miami New Times. His spokesperson said he no longer has any association with the nightclub.

He was criminally charged with firing a gun in a public place when he livestreamed himself shooting an already-dead alligator in the Everglades in March. He received six months of probation after pleading no contest. Shortly after, he was hospitalized after possibly overdosing in a nightclub.

READ MORE: ‘Looksmaxxer’ influencer Clavicular charged in Everglades shooting of dead gator

While his content isn’t solely focused on the manosphere’s typical topics, Peters has collaborated with the field’s pioneers, including Myron Gaines, sharing in their ideologies and seemingly promoting their mission of male dominance in gender roles.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has designated Gaines’ podcast “Fresh & Fit” a male supremacist hate group. Gaines and his co-host, Walter Weekes, regularly invite Black women on to the program to harass and mistreat them. The show, which is based in downtown Miami, has been taken off Facebook and Instagram. The Herald reached out to Weekes and Gaines, but an interview could not be scheduled before publication.

Gaines has used the platform to write a book called “Why Women Deserve Less” while Weekes sells virtual, 20-minute dating and lifestyle lessons for $500. The SPLC has documented some of the pair’s comments and says they and other men in the Black manosphere target Black women, blaming them for poverty, high incarceration rates and HIV cases in the Black community.

“It’s definitely a real concern, and I don’t think we’ve seen it platformed in such a way before,” said Fugardi, the research analyst for the Southern Poverty Law Center.

READ MORE: Miami Beach’s Vendôme apologizes after influencers seen partying to ‘Heil Hitler’

The Tates, Clavicular and Gaines drew mass disdain in January from South Florida residents when videos of their partying at Vendôme in Miami Beach went viral. The group could be seen in several videos dancing and singing to Kanye West’s controversial song “Heil Hitler.”

The nightclub publically apologized and fired three employees, while the influencers involved brushed the criticism off as their fan bases lauded their actions.

Miami: The ‘perfect proving ground’

Claire Oueslati-Porter, the director of the University of Miami’s Gender and Sexuality Studies program, said there are many reasons Miami’s become a fly trap for these influencers selling hypermasculinity.

Put simply, she said, influencers like the Tate brothers, Clavicular, Weekes and Gaines portray Miami as a fantasy.

Round-the-clock partying, porn creation and women who embody the conventional beauty standard are all part of the city’s “exotic” glamor, she said.

And when these men advertise that, their viewers — no matter where they are in the world — try to replicate the fantasy.

“They’re sort of going along and fantasizing that they are someone like Andrew Tate or someone else who’s been able to become so powerful,” she said. “It doesn’t matter if they’re in their mom’s basement in a house in Ohio, [they’re] probably not wealthy, affluent or powerful, and that’s through engaging with domination of women’s bodies and emotions and psychology.”

This fantasy is exacerbated by technology, she said, adding that as Miami is one of the nation’s fastest-growing tech hubs, it makes sense that the influencers would take up shop here.

“It’s like a perfect proving ground for continuing to build an empire that is already established in other places,” she said.

Oueslati-Porter said another reason these influencers see Miami as a favorable spot to put down roots could be Florida’s favorable tax environment.

Because many of these men market products like “get rich quick” programs or workout supplements, Florida’s lack of a state income tax makes it an especially attractive place to do business.

“There’s a lot less kind of regulation on work here in Florida and lower taxes,” she said. “That makes it seem like a kind of ideal place to cultivate an online empire.”