Drew Afualo is never at a loss for words. On the topic of idiot men who get a rise out of shaming women online—nitpicking them over their weight, their dress, or their body count (when it comes to sexual partners)—she, in fact, won’t shut up.
It is why her fans, and detractors, keep coming back. In the years since Afualo first started blasting men for their shitty, anti-feminist behavior on TikTok in 2020, she has become a household name among Gen Z thanks to her high-caliber, laser-focused, near Shakespearean tongue-lashings.
As host of The Comment Section podcast on Spotify, Afualo is adamant about where and with whom she stands. Her platform, she says, is one men do not have a seat on. “As someone who makes a living by fumigating the internet of these human roaches, I always say, I have the most aggressive form of job security there is,” she writes in her new memoir-manifesto Loud: Accept Nothing Less Than the Life You Deserve, out July 30, “because men will never stop being terrible, and I will never stop calling them out for it. I sleep soundly at night on a mattress that those bitches paid for.”
The formula is working. Afualo is everywhere now—8 million followers on TikTok, 1 million on Instagram—and perhaps most proudly, living rent-free in the minds of Logan Paul-loving podcast bros who feel threatened by female empowerment. Over the phone from Los Angeles, we talked about the influence of family, how humor works, and why she’s not overly concerned about TikTok getting banned.
JASON PARHAM: If it’s OK, let’s begin with the biggest news of the week. Vice President Kamala Harris announced her presidential run, and will be the likely Democratic nominee. How are you feeling about that?
DREW AFUALO: Hopeful. I feel like any woman in a position of power is a win for women everywhere. It’s very exciting.
I’ve heard a lot of Kamala can’t do it. She’s not ready. Why do you think it’s so hard for certain people to believe a woman can be president?
Probably the same reason that, you know, the patriarchy has convinced most people that women can’t do anything without the help of a man. But if we were to trace all the world’s problems back to a source, it always comes from a man. I don’t know, you tell me, why do people think women are incapable when men have created all of the world’s problems?
You engage similar topics in Loud. In one chapter, titled “It’s Okay to Be Mean,” you write, “Since the advent of social media, the internet has been a minefield for anyone who is not a cisgendered heterosexual white man.” I recently joked with a friend how I sometimes wonder if the first lie of social media was that everyone deserves a voice online. So many platforms have become a breeding ground for hate.
The people that I stitch [on TikTok] are pretty indicative of “Well, maybe not.” For me, there is a beauty and a curse to the internet. It’s wonderful that so many people have found community and connections through the internet and been able to reach so many people, myself included.