The dynamics of self-scandalization: Pulling users into the feud between Andrew Tate and Greta Thunberg

This article engages with self-scandalization as a calculated communicative strategy that employs morally transgressive performances on social media to elicit public, often emotion-driven responses to gain attention and fame. To conceptualize the dynamics of self-scandalization, we draw from what Diana Zulli coined ‘socio-mediated scandals’, which are co-constructed by active online users who can become forceful communicative co-drivers of a scandal. Based on netnography, we analyze the feud between influencer Andrew Tate and environmental activist Greta Thunberg on Twitter/X in December 2022. We show how Tate’s strategy of self-scandalization enticed different online communities to (un)willingly amplify and co-construct the scandalous incident. Tate did this not only to provoke with his moral transgressions but also to create an entertaining drama connecting to both popular and Internet culture. Compelling conflict, sensationalism and exaggeration, paired with moral transgressions along politicized trenches, unfold the potential to pull in large and niche communities outside of the self-scandalizer’s usual sphere of influence.