Drew Afualo has built up 3.6 millionTikTok followers by critiquing misogynistic content.- Afualo said she's become the "crusader of
women " on the app, a role she's happy with.
Drew Afualo never intended to become TikTok's "crusader of women," but it's a title she said she's happy to bear.
Afualo, who has built up 3.6 million TikTok followers by critiquing sexist content on the app, began her TikTok journey by telling stories of her own negative experiences with men.
That "snowballed" into her becoming the app's unofficial
Afualo's original dream was to be a sports journalist. But after landing a job at the NFL in 2019, she was fired after about 10 months. Afualo recalled to Brittany Krystle in a recent podcast that while it was devastating at the time, it serendipitously led her to spend more time on TikTok at the beginning of 2020. Then, a few weeks later, the coronavirus pandemic hit, and content creation became Afualo's full time job.
Now, she is so well-known that women will flood the comments of TikToks they see as sexist to try and summon her — and her characteristic laugh has become a popular sound on the app, with women using it to signify female power.
@robertdowneyweeniehutjr #greenscreen fighting all the necessary battles for us @Drew Afualo #drewafualo #mysoginy #fyp #embarrassing #thankyou ♬ original sound - mckenna
In one popular post, Afualo, who is 26 and lives in California, responded to a TikTok video in which a man criticized a woman who was getting hundreds of thousands of likes for "showing off" her figure.
"We're telling women that we don't want to see them be hot?" Afualo said in her response, which received over 3 million views. "I bet you watched that video one million times you perve."
On another occasion, a male creator went viral with a video calling for women to "go on a calorie deficit," referring to the diet technique.
Afualo said she was tagged in comments on the original post so many times that the creator had blocked her before she even had a chance to respond.
@drewafualo y’all confuse tf outta me LMFAO ##fyp ##xyzbca ##girls ##men ##funny ##college ##embarassing ##SpotifyWrapped ##AmazonMusicJingleBellTok ##MacysGiftTok
♬ original sound - Drew Afualo
When Afualo started responding to this kind of content, she said she was in "disbelief" about how rife it was on TikTok. Sometimes, she said, it feels like her boat is sinking — and she's "constantly shoveling water out of it."
"No matter how much I shovel out, more pours in," Afualo said. "I'll never be out of a job, that's for sure."
TikTok's community guidelines prohibit "hateful" content, including anything that dehumanizes an individual or a group on the basis of protected attributes, including sex and gender.
"TikTok is deeply committed to fostering a welcoming, inclusive and safe place for people to share their creativity," a spokesperson for the platform told Insider. "We do not tolerate hateful behaviour directed at individuals or groups because of their sex or gender identity, and we take action against any such content or behaviours, including by removing videos, comments and accounts."
Afualo's viral takedowns often insult the physical features of the men she's critiquing
Afualo's videos include some creative insults about the men she is criticizing. In response to a man who said women forget sometimes to "suck in" their stomach, Afualo said he was built like a "palm tree" and resembled the cartoon character "Roddy from 'Flushed Away.'"
There's a misconception that women always have to take "the high road," she said, and lean towards the assumption that men just don't know better and need to be gently educated.
Afualo doesn't do that — she fights fire with fire.
"I don't do the education bullshit because it's not my job, frankly," she said. "It's not my job to educate you on why you shouldn't hate women."
She gets some pushback, mostly from men, she said, who say she is sinking to the same level as those she is criticizing. But to this, Afualo highlighted that her comments are always "silly" in nature.
"I said you look like The Good Dinosaur and all of a sudden I'm meanest girl ever," she told Insider. "You made a joke and I made a joke, but somehow mine's mean, and yours isn't? OK."
Some people criticize Afualo for making fun of men for being "bald" or "short," but she says that these characteristics, and the idea that men are less attractive for having them, are "patriarchal beliefs" stemming from toxic masculinity: "so that's on y'all," she said.
"That's on you that you feel like you have to be bigger and stronger to be manly, or whatever it is they believe."
@drewafualo happy Monday LMFAO ##fyp ##xyzbca ##girls ##men ##funny ##college ##embarrassing ##PUBGMOBILE ##greenscreenvideo
♬ original sound - Drew Afualo
Afualo said she hopes to empower women
Afualo believes she's so popular with women because she's brutal, and doesn't waste her time trying to educate men who should already know better than to broadcast how "misogynistic and bigoted" they seem.
Afualo said she grew up with several strong feminist figures in her life, particularly her mom who taught her never to let anyone else determine her worth. Now, when she gets hate comments and trolls telling her she's "fat" or "ugly," it doesn't penetrate her brain "even 1%."
She said she hopes to help empower "women of color, black women, fat women, trans women, and everyone in between" to feel the same way, and give them the confidence to stand up for themselves and others.
"And then love themselves enough to hold out for like the best version of a relationship that they want," she said. "To raise your standards and hold them high. It may take a little time, but someone will definitely reach the bar."