Until now, Pete Davidson was mostly famous for dating famous women. You’d be hard-pressed to name a female celeb the SNL alum hasn’t dated. So much so that, at one point, his breakup with Kim Kardashian elicited a series of memes predicting his next girlfriend (it ended up being Emily Ratajkowski).
But this week he’s become known for something else, too. Ribbing on influencers. Which is fair enough on the surface—except his distaste appears to be directed solely towards women (or “girls my age”), despite men being some of the most annoying influencers on earth.
“Girls are just talking to themselves on there,” he scoffed in an interview with Variety. “And they’re like, ‘Okay, come get ready with me.’ I’m like, who the fuck are you? What do you do? Nothing. What the fuck is this?”
Davidson continued: “They make $40 million a year, and I’m like, what? The world’s broken. There are girls my age that go on TikTok, and they’ll, like, mutter a thing and then do this dance, and I’m like, what the fuck are you doing?” He went on to call clips like this “insane” and “lame” before making a joke about showing “soft cock” on OnlyFans to make some money himself.
Naturally, his comments have sparked a backlash, with plenty of people calling Davidson out for his ignorance and sexism. But this sort of rhetoric isn’t unusual when it comes to chastising influencers. Despite increasing concerns about the proliferation of manosphere content from male content creators, for example, ranging from pickup artistry to incel language, or endless male “self-improvement” podcasters, it’s always women who seem to be the butt of jokes when it comes to who’s posting what on the internet. As if whatever men do is automatically more “serious”.
In this case, Davidson’s ire was specifically aimed at “girls”. It’s always “girls” and not “women”; what better way to downplay a woman’s actions and achievements than by infantilising her? With his signature drollness, Davidson could easily be any other Hinge date gone wrong who hates it when women are more successful than him.
In all seriousness, Davidson didn’t kill anyone—they’re just the slightly annoying words of one man. Nothing we haven’t heard before. But his comments do illustrate a broader attitude or ignorance towards women who find ways to make money outside of traditional structures. At a time when the gender pay gap persists across the workplace (Indian women earn 24% less in salaried jobs, 34% less as casual workers, recent government data shows), it’s hardly surprising that some women turn to other means to make money—including, yes, influencing. It’s also worth noting that women spend on average twice as much time as men on childcare and household work. Again, it’s no wonder that some women are choosing to work from home and on their own time.
