It doesn’t matter even if a video is posted to critique or question what these alpha males are saying. They don’t care if you’re laughing at them, it just feeds them and they get bigger.’ It is disturbingly easy to ‘gamify’ the algorithms on some social media platforms to churn out whatever bile you like. For all of Tate’s garbage that he put out, he wasn’t the only person actually posting it. As Shea identifies in The Dangerous Rise, Tate's version of masculinity is one wherein self-identity is carved out of subjugating women, driving fast cars, and violently establishing yourself as the top dog, the alpha, as Mikey with the Big Muscles. In the War Room, they encourage the men who sign on to the programme to get into the ring with a cage fighter, which a third of them do, and are universally beaten into a pulp, because the ability to fight is what defines a man, or something. Those who choose not to get into the ring with a professional martial artist are shamed and belittled. This is the saddest part of this section, really, and a terrible indictment of Tate's character: performance or not, he's more than happy to take the money of vulnerable men and further lessen their self-worth behind a facade of betterment.

So what can be done to try and curb the damage that alpha males, and their potential entrées into harmful online communities, are doing? Now, Richard is left worried about the sorts of vulnerable young men that he used to help being constantly exposed to alpha male dating gurus, such as Tate.According to Richard, his primary aim was to help shy, nerdy guys, not unlike himself (he only had his first kiss at 21), to gain the confidence to meet women. This content appeals to boys who are frustrated and it turns them into angry men. It’s quite worrying.’ Alpha males may have come about as a response to societal changes when men now consider themselves victims, says Dr Lisa Sugiura, senior lecturer at the University of Portsmouth.

In his slow Estuary American drawl, and with light glinting off the top of his shaved head, he continues: ‘Females don’t have independent thought. They don’t come up with anything. They’re just empty vessels, waiting for someone to install the programming.’A lot of the stuff that was done at the time did objectify women,’ he admits. ‘Going to bars and saying which women were our “targets.” It sounds bad, for sure. A lot of the language was horrible. In one of Tate’s videos, he explains that men should not ‘permit’ their girlfriends to go on breaks with mates: ‘She does not need to go on holiday to be a hoe on some random table because her friend met some random dude on Tinder,’ he spits into a mic, before reiterating that of course, it’s fine for men to go away together. There’s always going to be lonely men, the question is what to do with them,’ he explains. ‘There’s no moderate content aimed at them which focuses on self-improvement.