young woman with mic and headphones

Pearl/YouTube

‘The female Andrew Tate’: This anti-feminist vlogger wants to build the ‘Fox News of YouTube’

It's called The Audacity Network.

 

Catherine Caruso

Tech

Posted on Sep 19, 2023   Updated on Nov 27, 2023, 12:05 pm CST

Known for her anti-feminist videos and controversial social media posts, right-wing YouTuber Pearl Davis is branching out to start her own media network—and she’s already hired her first commentator. Called The Audacity Network, Davis describes the new company as an “openly Catholic network that promotes freedom of speech” and will “compete with the mainstream media.” 

In a series of tweets announcing the launch, Davis predicted her network would rival TalkTV and become the “Fox News of YouTube.” She also claims The Audacity Network will eventually produce media for children and movies for “people that are sick of this woke bullshit,” adding that she already has plenty of investors lined up to fund this endeavor. 

“There is a demand for a network that believes in gender roles, that believes in truth, a network that ACTUALLY has the audacity,” she tweeted in late July. 

Who is Pearl Davis?

Davis has made a name for herself spreading anti-feminist and misogynistic views on the internet. Sometimes referred to as the “female Andrew Tate,” Davis has worked as a YouTuber full-time for the last two years, uploading countless videos, in which she repeatedly insults the intelligence and capabilities of women and calls for the eradication of women’s rights.

While the Audacity Network’s YouTube channel doesn’t actually have any videos listed, Davis did tag the channel in a video introducing her new hire, Christine Grace Smith. Although she previously appeared as a guest in a handful of Davis’ videos this spring, Smith is a relative newcomer to the political commentary world, having worked as a Sales Executive at a print management company up until June—a position she started shortly after graduating from London Metropolitan University with a Bachelor of Laws. 

Smith released her first anti-feminist YouTube video under this new brand on Aug. 3 and has already amassed nearly 13,000 subscribers in just over a month. Titled “The Rise of Sexual Objectification in Modern Women,” the video is the first episode in a series called “Debunking The Lunacy,” in which Smith attempts to “debunk” feminism and certain aspects of modern society that she blames feminists for. 

In the episode, Smith claims that “promiscuity has now become an identity” that “people feel that need to aspire to,” telling her viewers what the mainstream media apparently doesn’t want them to know: that having casual sex is dangerous. According to Smith, women have been tricked by celebrities and politicians into believing that female empowerment is synonymous with sex without being informed of the “risks” of casual sex, which apparently include a higher divorce rate and inability to “pair bond” or form long-lasting romantic relationships—a myth straight from the manosphere. 

“It’s the same feminists that preach about female empowerment as an excuse to indulge in promiscuous behavior that also shame the ideal of being a wife,” Smith says.

This type of rhetoric is very much on par with that of Smith’s boss, Davis, who has become notorious for espousing outdated and demeaning takes on women. 

According to Davis, feminism “ruined everything” and women shouldn’t have the right to vote. In both past and recent videos, as well as various tweets, she’s likened women to children, chastised them for having sex before marriage, and even said that men should be able to hit women back. She also believes divorce should be illegal. 

Women aren’t the only targets of her ire, however. Davis also recently wrote a song suggesting Hitler was right about Jewish people, which she quickly deleted, called trans women “liars” and made fun of their genitalia, and said that it’s a “problem” that some modern churches display “gay flags.” In an interview with white nationalist Nick Fuentes, Davis even says people “embellish” the horrors of American slavery to “control people.”

In one recent video, which she posted on Twitter, Davis says that gay people are going to pretend to have been “so oppressed in this society” in 100 years, just like women supposedly did, and referred to the early suffragettes as “literal terrorists” who “convinced” people they were victims. She even said the first female runner to compete in the Boston Marathon was a “bitch infiltrating a man’s space” because she felt “entitled” to join the race “instead of starting her own.” 

With more than 1.7 million subscribers and no shortage of viral tweets and TikTok clips, Davis is very much in the public eye and is now a regular guest on Piers Morgan’s TalkTV show Piers Morgan Uncensored, where she “debates” feminists on a variety of topics, like equal pay in sports

Following in her boss’s footsteps, Smith has already uploaded dozens of videos since her YouTube debut in early August, all of which include the hashtag #JustPearlyThings. While a few of her videos are part of her “Debunking The Lunacy” series, most of them are Davis’s bread and butter: reaction videos. So far, the majority of Smith’s reaction videos show her responding to clips of Andrew Tate, who was recently charged with rape and human trafficking in Romania, while the rest rebuke feminists for being “delusional” and scold women who have OnlyFans accounts. 

While both Smith and The Audacity Network are just starting out, Davis’s own career trajectory serves as a testament to her ability to grow platforms almost overnight, for better or worse. According to Insider, Davis, who started off making videos about her family and reactions to music videos, didn’t gain much attention until May 2022, after which her subscriber count jumped from 25,000 to 500,000 in just six months, gaining more and more followers as her content became increasingly controversial. It wasn’t until she started filming herself reacting to clips of Kevin Samuels, the late content creator known for giving misogynistic dating advice, that she began to rake in the views. Now at nearly 2 million subscribers, Davis is too big to be ignored. 

Still on the hunt for more talent, Davis posted a video on X on Sept. 1 announcing that her “first priority” is to sign people with a unique idea for a YouTube show and is looking to recruit candidates from the Midwest or Las Vegas/Los Angeles area. 

Since then, she’s posted two videos of an unnamed “potential talent sign,” who is shown discussing how “female privilege” endangers men, and asked her viewers and fans for feedback on the possible hire. Davis has also created a merchandise store for The Audacity Network, which only has one item—a “Women Shouldn’t Vote” T-shirt.

It is currently on backorder.

Davis also appears to have recently gotten in the latest conservative moneymaker, advertising gold investments for retirement.

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*First Published: Sep 19, 2023, 7:00 am CDT