Bravo TV’s West Wilson On How Social Media Is Fueling a Toxic Far Right Masculinity [WATCH]
"Summer House" star and non-toxic bro West Wilson speaks about how the MAGA and manfluencer movements are creating a new kind of nasty masculinity.
Video by: Slav Velkov and Joey Lautrup
It’s a common belief that younger generations will adopt more progressive views than their predecessors, embracing less sexism, racism, and homo/transphobia. However, young men in 2025 disproportionately support conservative candidates. Last year, 58% of Gen Z men voted for Donald Trump, making the demographic a key ingredient to creating the Republican trifecta.
Many young men have reported feeling left behind, perceiving societal progress as sidelining their concerns. These feelings have created opportunities for misogynistic, transphobic influencers like Andrew Tate, who arrived in the U.S. on Thursday despite facing rape and human trafficking charges that are still pending in Romania.
A 2023 study revealed that over half of young fathers and almost a quarter of teenage boys held a favorable view of Tate, who has compared women to dogs, believes it should be illegal for them to drive and thinks they “bear some responsibility” for being raped.
We wanted to understand the factors driving these sentiments among young men. So we called up sports journalist, Bravo TV star and certified bro (the non-toxic kind) West Wilson to ask him about why he thinks bro culture has taken the wrong turn to the far-right.
Watch the full interview above or read the transcript here:
Spencer Macnaughton: Well, cheers.
West Wilson: Hell yeah.
SM: I did some research on you and read your New York Times profile. One of the things they said in it was that gay comedian, actor and Bravo fan, Joel Kim Booster said, “I haven't liked a straight white guy this much since freaking Bernie Sanders.”
WW: Oh, nice!
SM: Why are you exuding allyship?
WW: I don't honestly know if I know the answer to that. From a young age, I think I've been able to move through life relatively confident and sure of who I was, and I think that's allowed me to be comfortable with making new friends and being around people who are different than me. Not naturally rejecting being uncomfortable in people's differences. I attribute most of that to both of my parents, for sure. A lot of white men who still probably have the most privilege in our country would now appear to be the most insecure population. I think being secure in who you are allows you to trust others more.
SM: You have a lot of fans in the football world, in the bro world. When I reached out to you and was like, “Hey, do you want to do an interview with an LGBTQ news publication?” Why were you interested and kind of said yes immediately?
WW: That’s a great question. Obviously I am a white dude from Missouri who is very sports forward and I think a lot of people are quick to label me. Before you and I talked to do this the word “bro culture” was used a lot and I certainly am 100 % a bro, I guess you could call it, but the culture itself I don't necessarily know if that's a good thing.
SM: Why do you think you're 100 % a bro? But why do you think the culture isn't the part that you might identify with as much?
WW: Bro culture? I don't know. I don't think it needs to be a bad thing, I guess. Let's start with that. It certainly has gone places that it shouldn't. Now when I think of all the large groups of people wearing, let's say, red MAGA hats, young people, it's a bunch of white kids wearing vests who are, I would guess, mimicking what their parents are telling them.
SM: You've done some posting on your political views on social media.
WW: Yeah, not a secret.
SM: Let's clear that [up.] Who did you vote for and why?
WW: I voted for Kamala. My mom is an OBGYN and very pro women's health, women's rights, and so being pro choice has always been a very clear understanding for me since I can remember.
That's never really been a question. And also guns, people might be surprised. [I’m] from Missouri, [my] dad rides horses. I just think all the shit that's happened in our country with guns and the inability for people to fucking stand up for that is completely wild to me. And so those two are very colossal reasons why I am and will probably be a Democrat forever.
SM: Trump and the GOP spent $215 million on anti-trans ads, so that's five times more than he spent on ads focused on the economy. The biggest voting bloc that swung aggressively towards Trump was young men, right? So why did that type of messaging, that anti-trans messaging, resonate with folks of your demographic growth?
WW: I find it baffling, to be honest. I've lived in Hell's Kitchen for five years. There are drag bars all over Hell's Kitchen that I walk by every single day. I have not been subjected to more drag queen propaganda or trans propaganda over the last year or two than I was by people from the Republican Party. They want people to be afraid of things that they aren't necessarily comfortable with. I find them to be obsessed with the idea of trans people and drag queens. If you only watch Fox or if you only read tweets from people that you want to follow, you're going to be told to be afraid of something and you're probably going to be because you've never been subjected to, you know, X type of person.
SM: The echo chamber effect.
WW: Right. Which is everything that we could talk about today.
SM: But why do you think he intentionally targeted those ads in college football games and sports games?
WW: It's easier to not accept real life when you have easy, not to use sports analogies, but layups to blame other people for other things. So like it is weird the same type of people who think elections are fake, think sports are rigged. People can't accept that things possibly didn't go their way. And I do think his entire time in office the first time, and then this campaign again was very much giving people outs to just blame other people and be afraid of things, and when you can't accept the real world, then it's so easy to just say, like, “it's a bunch of other people and other things' faults.”
Because if someone is triggered by a drag queen or someone who is trans, it's easier for them to push back, not agree with it, and agree with Trump or with his campaign or with that party. Because they don't have to internally reflect in any way.
SM: Obviously there's a whole world of the Manosphere out there and manfluencers, right? Many who espouse deeply misogynistic views, right? We think about Nick Fuentes who posted, “Your Body, My Choice,” right? And then Andrew Tate is another one. And I want to read you a few things that Andrew Tate has said. One thing he said is, “I think my sister is her husband's property.” Another thing he said was, “I'm absolutely misogynist,” and added, “I'm a realist and when you're a realist, you're sexist. There's no way you can be rooted in reality and not be sexist.” Over half of young dads, 56%, up under the age of 35, have a favorable view of Andrew Tate, while almost a quarter of teenage boys are positive about the influencer, right? So what is going on in, again, your demographic group, not to throw it under the bus, where you have that massive part of the population who thinks, “F yeah, let's be sexist, let's be misogynistic, let's say that women's rights and abortion rights are our decision as men?”
WW: Do I think these people actually think this way? I hope not, and I think attention is a hell of a drug, obviously. But, do I think that there are boys and men who have sad, lonely lives or have been upset with some girl [who] didn't wanna date him and then they find, I guess, an outlet in these extremists and feel heard, which is so sad to say. Why else would they listen to anyone else challenging them when there are a hundred people on their cell phones or on their computers telling them that the way they view the world is correct? It's just like a runaway train.
SM: How can you speak and break bread with the people who just feel like they're in an echo chamber that you can't penetrate?
WW: Even this interview, I hope maybe there's someone who, I don't know, followed me from my Bleacher Report, Complex days and football, whatever, and sees that I view things a certain way and can relate to that. I wish I had an answer for how to eliminate the scary echo chambers that we are talking about. For every Nick Fuentes, hopefully there's someone who can speak up and do the right thing.
SM: There's so many women, queer women athletes who are openly LGBTQ and in the men's world, no, that's not the truth at all. What the heck is taking so long for these guys to come out?
WW: I grew up in football locker rooms, I would imagine that's probably the scariest place to ever be in question.
I think if you were to come out now, I think we do, as a society, consider that to be like a step away from masculinity. And we view male athletes as potentially like peak or like the standard of masculinity per se. Whereas with women, femininity, I don't consider it attached to sports as much.
SM: What do you think could be done to make a situation where more men feel comfortable coming out in the NFL, NBA, etc.?
WW: I mean, I think it's gotta be people doing it. It's hard to say.
SM: But I think there's a climate that stops people from doing it. So like what can be done with the climate to enable people to feel comfortable coming out?
WW: I mean, I think it's gotta come from within the locker room. It’s gotta start top-down.
SM: You look stressed answering this question. (Laughs).
WW: I do! Because I don't have I don't have a great answer. It’s hard.
SM: Taylor Fritz is one of the best men's tennis players, top 10, and he's totally straight. And he openly said, guys should come out, they should feel safe and they would be accepted. What do you think about the allies in professional sports?
WW: All the Trump shit going on now probably makes it harder because now people have more confidence in speaking up against that. I kid you not, if a professional sports player right now offered that option, they would get more pushback than they would have when Obama was in office.
SM: You coming on here to talk to an LGBTQ publication, to tell me you voted for Kamala Harris, to do some of the things you do on social media is a risk that actually has potential repercussions.
WW: Yeah so, during election month or two, I guess we could call it, I lost like 4K, 5K thousand followers.
SM: Because you posted Democratic-leaning posts.
WW: Yeah, and it wasn't even like that hardcore, it was still very soft left, soft democratic posts.
SM: I would argue most influencers, most people who are social media stars, wouldn't say out loud, come on an LGBTQ publication and say, “I voted for Kamala,” and say everything you've said today. Why, in spite of that, do you still say, “I'm coming here.”
WW: I think what we've talked about today is so much that people need examples of people that they think they relate to. And if that's Missouri people or sports people, whatever, maybe my word lands harder for straight white dudes in their 20s because they see me as the same as them, where perhaps these fucking white kids don't actually listen to people who don't look like them or sound like them.
SM: You are a staunch ally, you're out there, you're talking about it publicly. To the kids, to the Gen Z, to the Gen Alpha right now, the bros. Do you have any message to them on allyship?
WW: Letting people share their story with you and proving that you care is actually what people want. And they want to know that you know that they have had struggles and that they've been through things that you haven't been through.
SM: I think so too. I think for me, and I think for a lot of LGBTQ folks I know, people feel like others tiptoe around them.
WW: Yeah, exactly.
SM: But we want to be asked the questions. If you make a mistake, it's okay. And I think there is a divide. I think a lot of people in LGBTQ spaces sometimes don't have room for those because they are understandably on the defense. But I think it's so important to make room for error.
WW: I don’t think I'm in the place to suggest that part of how we communicate with each other, but I do think, certainly now, I think a lot of people are also afraid to misspeak. I mean, I told you before we sat down, I was like, “Dude, if I fuck something up, if I say it the wrong way, check me, whatever.” Communicating and listening to each other is big. You know? I think that's where we gotta start.
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