Drew Afualo

AGE 26 HOMETOWN Riverside County, California TOTAL FOLLOWERS* 7.46 million GENRE Anti-Misogynistic Takedowns

“Women have constantly been expected to be the bigger person — to give patience, kindness, and grace to men in the face of disrespect,” says Drew Afualo, a sports journalist turned anti-misogyny influencer. “I just don’t do that.” If TikTok is Gotham City, then Afualo is its very own sexism-fighting Batman, letting out her signature giggle like a bat signal on millions of For You pages. “Men have been unchecked for hundreds of thousands of fucking years,” she says in one clip. “And now, there’s a new sheriff in town, bitch.”

When Afualo left her position at the NFL, and was freed from the restraints of corporate pleasantries, she decided to speak her mind. “I couldn’t openly express how I feel when I’m having to deal with misogyny or racism,” she says.

Afualo’s trademark has become finding clips of men saying shitty things about women, then stitching them with eviscerating responses. “I’m a woman of color; I’m also not a thin woman. All these different facets of bigotry play into the way people react negatively to my content,” Afualo says.

But millions of others — predominantly women and LGBTQ+ people — have the opposite response. “‘You say everything that I wish I could say,’ ” she says they tell her. “‘You put it into words in a way that I wish I could.’ ” —