My Favorite Griters: H. Pearl Davis

I’m not sure there is a grifter that better exemplifies the attention economy than Hannah Pearl Davis. Going simply by Pearl on all the relevant social media sites, Peal is a self-avowed “Antifeminist” that found a niche inside the “Red Pill” men’s rights media ecosystem by being a young white lady willing to say all sorts of retrograde sexist nonsense, albeit wrapped up in a swath of empathy for a group that has a difficult time getting any, in every sense of the word. Pearl is an important reminder that with the right amount of ambition and a sufficient dearth of shame, there is a mighty good living to be made on the internet.

I can’t recall exactly when I got fed one of her videos or why I clicked on it, but when I did, I was immediately mesmerized by this twenty-something confidently spewing “facts” to a bunch of Brits about just how screwed (not in a good way) men are by modern dating. The crux of the grift itself is pretty simple: Modern dating sucks because too many women (and some men) took Gloria Steinem and women’s lib too seriously. We’ll get to the grift itself, but let’s talk about Pearl the lady.

Around the end of 2019, Pearl was just a run-of-the-mill 23-year-old college graduate working a shitty sales job that she didn’t much care for. She stuck the job out for a year, but quit, with the hope of playing basketball in Europe and getting a graduate degree in Media “or something.” But Covid came along in 2020 and put the kibosh on organized basketball and Pearl’s lukewarm dream. So instead, she quit her job and lived at her multi-millionaire, sofewar- company-owning parents’ 10-bedroom, 40-acre lot somewhere in Illinois to work on building up her burgeoning social-media brand. And it turned out to absolutely be a viable career option.

Pearl began making hay on Tiktok with “Breakup Quiz” content. While Pearl was kicked off of Twitter in 2022 making her old “Toks” hard to find, from what I could gather, there were short videos that dove into “exit interview"" worksheets that people filled out post-breakup. Pearl would you that information to deconstruct who was to blame for the relationship ending and otherwise blather poectic about modern dating. Think of this as a crowdsourced “Loveline” for Zoomers. It probably goes without saying that Pearl does not have any particular expertise on dating. Pearl is just some lady, but in the world of the internet, expertise is completely irrelevant. What is relevant is that Pearl starts doing numbers as she builds up a following in the ballpark of 900,000 people.

Around the start of 2021 to expand the brand and revenue opportunities, Pearl started posting clips onto Youtube. Early on, her content veered more towards inane descriptions of her life and half-hearted stunts than out-and-out “anti-feminism,” though she occasionally dabbled in the so-called “Manosphere.” If you don’t know what the “Manosphere” is, I’m truly sorry to be the one to make you aware of its existence. To put it as succinctly as possible, the “manosphere” is a bunch of social media influencers getting rich by selling various versions of “How to be a real men” content to other men. The advice boils down to working out, cleaning your room, reading the Bible, “knowing your worth” and most importantly , not conceding an iota of power to any woman, pretty much ever. Pearl telegraphed where this was head in an early video with a shocking amount of honesty. In it, Pearl says she can consume Manosphere content because “she has low self-esteem.” This is telling.

Things started to change in 2022. For starters, Pearl moved to London. This move wasn’t done explicitly for social media, but at least partially with her eye on joining a semi-professional volleyball league. The move was made possible by donations on her cash app and Venmo, and significant contribution from her parents, who may well have expected some “return” on their investment, but it is doubtful this money was a straight-up loan with interest rates and an obligation to pay the money back.

Regardless, Pearl started doing the “Pregame” live show/podcast four times a week, a sort of dating/marriage/gender wars round table featuring a hodge-podge of various podcasters, relationship experts, media personalities and random people. Volleyball quickly became irrelevant. Pearl and her guests would tackle a variety of topics, like whether men or women have it worse in dating, should men care much money a woman makes, whether you can turn a hoe into a housewife and a host of other Gen-Z branded, hetero-relationship questions.

Pearl learned pretty quickly that her bread was buttered by answering every question on her show in the least flattering way for women as possible. According to Pearl, virtually every problem in modern dating boils down to some iteration of “bitches be crazy.” Pearl made it her beeswax to validate anybody else tat feels that way about women. The podcast also helped Pearl discover her prime money-maker, the “fact slap-as-feminist” video. The premise: Get a self-identified feminist to say something whacky, ill-informed or otherwise dismissive about men or something overly-flattering about women and let Pearl respond with “FACTs and “LOGIC.” After demolishing the flimsiest of start women (it’s usually women,) sexist dopes can rest easy knowing that they are the smart ones.

You have no doubt seen countless examples of the before. These videos come in every vintage: left-wing, right-wing, independent, conspiratorial, woke, anti-woke, pro-religion, anti-religion, whatever. They all involve a representative of your perceived opponents getting their comeuppance. These videos play well with both the Youtube algorithm and the darkness of the human heart. We just love watching our adversaries get “owned” and being reassured that our beliefs and in-groups are the correct ones.

Pearl learned just how ripe the market was for spicy girl-on-girl sexism. An early example of this is a video entitled “Delusional Feminist THINK Men Have It EASY,” in which Pearl and another guest confront a non-binary feminist who does, in fact, claim that men have it easier. The guest, Amy Rhiannon, mentions holding men to a higher standard because of the pay gap. Pearl counters with a higher suicide rate for men, before Amy mentions Toxic Masculinity, before Pearl et. All start discussing the differences in the life goals for women than for men, their different socialization and negotiation strategies, different preferences in partners, and closing on an intersectional quagmire, who has it harder: white women or black men?

While Amy was actually quite reasonable, made concessions, and otherwise participated in a conversation that had as much depth as that of two drunk undergrads, the clip did its job of showing a feminist’s worldview “fold” under the crushing weight of reality. This 8-minute clip was pulled from a nearly four-hour show. That 8-minute clip has 760,000 views on Youtube. if you assume a conservative 1 cent/view, that clip is worth $7600.

With the business model all-set, Pearl then spends the next couple of years speaking with Only Fans models, feminists, or any other women willing to talk to her, setting-up a gold-mine of “sic’em Pearl!” content to farm for her Youtube channel. Throw in Venmo, CashApp, etc… and Pearl has effectively monetized sexism.

Aside from the money, Pearl is also rewarded for this with lots and lots of attention. She has nearly two million subscribers on Youtube, and almost all of those are dudes getting off emotionally one “See, feminists are dumb!” videos. After saying something disparaging of women, Pearl is showered with praise for being “logical” or “one of the good ones.” And this feedback loop has only reinforced with Pearl that saying stupid comments about women equals validation and money. Like any good grift, your audience develops a tolerance so you have to escalate to get the same high. Pearl has said that men are smarter than women, that women shouldn’t vote, and even dabbled in antisemitism with a terrible (musically and morally) song about not being able to talk about Jewish people. (These are just what she has said on actual newscasts, like on Piers Morgan’s show.) All of those statements kill with her “women suck” audience, and we haven’t even dabbled in all the stuff that she has said about women’s bodies and their romantic expiration date of 30.

This kind of grift does have its limits. I already mentioned that Pearl was kicked off of Tiktok in 2022. In 2024, she has now been demonetized from Youtube, presumably because of that “women shouldn’t vote” nonsense. Though the grift may have gotten harder, it is too good to go away completely. Pearl’s Venmo and Cashapp are still open, and she has enough of a brand and a legion of mouth-breathing chump followers that she can take with her to her next destination. The money and notoriety are simply too good to stop.

No doubt, Pearl would frame this all very differently. She might go with the age-old “I’m just asking questions” or “having conversations” or “holding women accountable.” She might even pitch herself as sticking up for straight dudes who are under attack. These are all a mix of self-rationalization and intellectual dishonesty. Virtually no one has ever been convinced by one of Pearl’s clips. She is selling a fantasy to a sea of angry internet dweebs about winning an argument against every woman that has ever wronged them. It is distilled vindication in social media-sized chunks.

As further evidence of this, what actionable advice could any woman glean from Hannah Pearl Davis? I struggle to find one other than just accept that you are inferior to men, protect your virginity and hope to find a nice husband that will let you have his babies? Nobody takes Pearl’s worldview seriously. At all, because there is nothing of substance here.

Look. Courtship and how crummy it is has been a top-seller long before capitalism was ever a thing. And the “other gender categorically sucks” has probably been thought by the majority of humans that have ever lived. The internet makes everything and everybody worse, including women, who are every bit subject to criticism as the rest of us. But Pearl is not offering anything of actual value. She is neither a deep thinker nor relationship expert nor really anybody with anything thoughtful or funny to say. Pearl is a shameless capitalist who serves up self-hate and sexist slop to the dregs, a choir of women-hating chodes who will happily give up money and attention to hear their preacher tell them that thy are correct. But hey, at least Pearl got to meet Dave Chappelle.

-B.S. Lewis

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