Jordan Peterson fans flock to Sydney for 'Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life' ... trends now
On Saturday night I braved the hordes of 'incels' who flocked to worship their 'hero', the psychology professor turned online superstar Jordan Peterson.
Incel stands for 'involuntary celibate', and according to actress Olivia White the label fits the angry sexually deprived young men who idolise 'this insane man' Peterson, and who regard him as their 'pseudo-intellectual hero'.
The tweeted accusation brought Peterson to tears when he discussed it with Piers Morgan on his talk show Uncensored in September.
Jordan Peterson (pictured at Britain's Cambridge University in 2018, has gone from being a little-known professor of psychology at Canada's Toronto university to worldwide fame
'I thought the marginalised were supposed to have a voice?' Peterson said.
'People have been after me for a long time because I have been speaking to young men, what a terrible thing to do.'
For a close up look at who Peterson's audience actually is, I attended his 'Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life' national speaking tour in Sydney.
The bulk of his audience were young men but it certainly wasn't exclusively so, there were a substantial number of women plus some distinguished older looking attendees.
After talking to many, the main theme behind their devotion to Peterson was based on his courage ' to say things that are meant to be said'.
Ben, 22, said he was there after reading Peterson's 2019 bestseller '12 Rules for Life'.
'I did think it motivated my own personal life and I think for today’s society he's a good role model. I think he's someone people my age or adolescents should be looking up to,' Ben said.
Actress Olivia Wilde (pictured at a November an Oscars awards ceremony in Hollywood) said that Peterson was 'insane' and was a 'hero' to incels
'Especially for males in our age, he makes us be more accountable for our day-to-day lives in little things and simply just cleaning up your own act, in your own house and then broadening that out to the wider range of society.'
Ben did not think he was an 'incel' or that Peterson's audience was predominantly 'incels'.
'I think there are a lot of different people here, there are a diverse group of people, you just can't put up an umbrella over all these different people because they like Jordan Peterson,' he said.
Connor, 25, said he had been a Peterson fan for a couple of years after discovering him on YouTube, which has been the Canadian academic's springboard to global fame.
'His (Peterson's) first book is a great message – clean yourself up, get your basic variables in order try to maximise them before you go out into the world,' Connor said.
'There's a lot of traps that young men can fall into and I think that’s really great advice to counter those ideas.'
Connor, who was waiting to attend Peterson's lecture in Sydney on Saturday says Peterson's books have a 'great message'
As for being 'anti-woke', Connor said Peterson is 'definitely smacking any nonsense that's being said'.
Peterson's dedicated YouTube channel has nearly 6 million subscribers and his popularity on the platform soared after he did an interview with UK TV presenter Cathy Newman in 2017.
With a calm and academic demeanour, Peterson systematically challenged Newman's assertions about the gender pay gap and the footage earned multiple YouTube postings with titles such as How Jordan Peterson owned Cathy Newman'.
The unlikely journey of the 60-year-old Toronto professor and clinical psychologist into becoming a global 'influencer' began in 2016 when he refused a university direction to use students' preferred gender pronouns.
Stances such as this led to accusations he is a 'darling of the alt right' as a 2019 Sydney Morning Herald profile labelled him.
'Alt right' is a loose description of an internet and meme-driven sexist backlash by 'angry white males' against woke notions of equality.
George (pictured left) said that the term 'incel' was used to dismiss Peterson's message and his fans
George, 24, said he had been a fan of Peterson since seeing him on Joe Rogan 's podcast, which has also been accused of being a platform of the 'alt-right'.
'I like his stance on a lot of political commentary,' George said.
'The way he views conservative ways about how men should act.'
George said he did not meet the definition of being an incel as he'd had a girlfriend for a year, and others before that.
He did not believe the term accurately described Peterson or his fans.
'I don't think he is like that at all, I think they use that term to dismiss any kind of discourse and dismiss you straight away,' he said.
A 28-year-old woman sitting nearby, but who did not wish to be identified for work reasons, said she appreciated the way Peterson 'views the world'.
George and Raphael are migrants from the Middle East who certainly don't fit the description of being 'angry white male' fans of Peterson
'Everything he says is very logical, it makes sense,' she said.
'These days people make up these things that are illogical or are fallacies that just don't make sense.'
Her male partner is also a Peterson devotee but was unable to attend so she came solo.
She believed modern men were struggling with shifting goalposts of gender roles.
'Men don't know where they fit these days,' she said.
'They suppress their masculinity but the woman still wants them to be masculine in some respects. They are damned if they do, and damned if they don't, basically.'
