Former WAFL player Tom Baulch ‘Prime Train’ responds to claims he’s ‘WA’s Andrew Tate’ after problematic post

A controversial social media personality dubbed ‘WA’s Andrew Tate’ for encouraging his male followers to “unfollow every female influencer” has stood by his message despite widespread backlash.

Tom Baulch, known online as Prime Train, joined the WAFL for a brief period in 2017 and has built a huge following through his fitness brand Prime Train.

The 26-year-old actress became the center of a sexism scandal on Tuesday after she shared an Instagram post titled Unfollow Every Female Influencer.

In his controversial post, Baulch wrote: “Stop following every female influencer; in fact, if you’re a guy, you shouldn’t be following girls you’re not dating or who might distract you.”

“Don’t like mixed photos of girls, no one wants to see your name under a girl’s photo.

“Control your lust. Control your brain. Control what you see. If a man can control his lust, he can control his goals.”

Comments quickly flooded the post, criticizing Baulch for generalizing women in her message.

Some called this work “childish and sexist”, while others found Baulch’s message “extremely alarming”.

High-profile Australian names including Olivia Rogers, Georgie Parker and Laura Henshaw were among the women who voiced their concerns in the comments.

“We must be careful not to associate or belittle female influencers solely for sexual appeal; some of the most intelligent and inspiring creators online are women,” one user said.

Another said: “By this logic, should men also stay off the streets, workplaces, and gyms to avoid accidentally seeing women and ‘losing control’? Women aren’t the problem, and men aren’t helpless creatures who must shape their lives around avoiding them.”

Others claimed that Baulch’s message was similar to the harmful message preached by self-proclaimed misogynist Andrew Tate.

“This guy is the new Andrew Tate,” one comment read, while another similarly said: “This is Andrew Tate from WA.”

In an interview with PerthNow, Baulch defended his original message but said it was the statement that fueled the outrage.

“This was a delivery; the feedback was very clear that the shipment was made completely incorrectly,” he said.

“I follow female influencers, I have a lot of female influencers that I like from a fitness and fashion perspective, but I don’t follow any type of pornography or OnlyFans.

“That was supposed to be the overarching message of my post, and it wasn’t clear enough, so I needed to word it better.”

He also claimed that the controversial post was shared deliberately to “hook” readers.

“Everything you put out on social media has a nuance to it, and it has to be engaging and intended to get people to spend more time on the content so it gets better,” he said.

“If there wasn’t an intriguing hook no one would comment, so you tread a fine line with a lot of risk – and I think I flew too close to the sun this time.

“I guess everyone decided not to read the title, which made it a lot harder to explain what I meant.”

In response to Andrew Tate’s claims, Baulch said he had “never” seen the comparison.

“I have a wonderful mother, an amazing sister and an amazing partner, which is something Andrew Tate doesn’t have,” he said.

“He’s got more than one girlfriend, more than one car, and that’s probably the biggest difference between Andrew Tate and me.

“The things I value most in my life are my family and my wife, and I think that’s what pushed me to do this job.”

But Curtin University gender politics professor Amy Dobson said there were clear parallels between Baulch’s controversial post and the rhetoric promoted by ‘manosphere’ influencers such as Andrew Tate.

“We can definitely see similar kinds of discourse going on here about narratives or discourses about a certain type of masculinity being about self-control and women disrupting that by their mere existence – and they are often attractive or, as (Baulch) says, random girls disrupt that.”

“It is the same problematic terms and way of talking about women that are instrumental to violence and rape against women.”

Professor Dobson said Baulch’s focus on eliminating only “casual” women was extremely worrying.

“I find the use of that word really interesting and problematic, as if we can judge someone’s promiscuous sexual orientation by the way they dress,” Dobson said.

“This is clearly a problematic play on rape culture and the assumption that we can or should judge someone’s sexual behavior by the way they dress or represent themselves in photos online.

“We see this all the time in everyday digital culture, this kind of assumption that if women present themselves in a certain way, or in a common everyday, feminized presentation of self, they are somehow priming themselves to be judged on their appearance.

“This is a really problematic assumption that not only objectifies women, but also takes into account the fact that someone’s self-presentation online has anything to do with their sexual activity or desire.”

Baulch was forced to apologize on Instagram following the backlash, telling PerthNow: “I’m 100 per cent sorry if I offended you.”

“I think (the post) is way out of context,” he said.

“But I guess everyone has the right to feel how they feel.

“At the end of the day, I know who I am and I know what I say, so that’s all that really matters.