Welcome to Part 1 of our July 2025 Inspirational Interview with Chesko.
Chesko, known as “The Speech Prof” to over 2.5 million followers on social media, is a tenured professor of communication studies, online “Educator of the Year” award winner, national champion speech coach, host of the “Mr. Pick Me & The Manhater” podcast, loving husband, and father of three young children. With his research background in the areas of intersectional feminist rhetoric, Chesko uses his online platforms to battle the toxicity of the internet with kindness and comedy.
Part 2 of Chesko’s interview will be published 7 July, 2025.
All photos and videos are courtesy of Chesko.
1. What started you on your journey of supporting the movement to end violence against women (VAW)?
I was raised by a single mother and my grandmother and I can’t say there was a single specific moment as much as it was that the two most important people in my life instilled a belief system in me based on the idea that if you see something wrong, you should say something about it. It wasn’t until I had my own platform that I realised I had both the opportunity and responsibility to amplify that same message in my own way.
2. Did you have any male role models – positive or negative – who shaped your feminist attitude towards women and girls?
I wish I could say I had a positive one, but the men in my life growing up were not the type of people that ANYONE should be looking up to. I’ve grown less angry and more disappointed over the years with the man that my father was (especially once I became a father myself). He did play a role in making me who I am today though in the sense that much of my life was spent asking, “What would my father do in this situation?” And then doing the opposite. Now as a father of three, I’m constantly thinking about how to model the kind of man I want my children to see in the world.
3. What motivated you to start video blogging about sexism, misogyny, toxic masculinity, and VAW and why did you choose this method of addressing these issues?
I’ll be honest, it was not intentional. I joined TikTok in 2021 mainly because I wanted to better understand how my students were consuming media so I could be a better teacher for my classes that were shifted online during the pandemic. As my following grew, I could not think of a better use of my unexpected platform than to use it to speak out about the issues I was passionate about. I figured that it might cost me followers, but I wasn’t planning on making content forever, so why not? Fast forward four years and speaking about something that was more of a personal research interest has become an entire second career.
4. What are the particular challenges that male influencers who are feminist allies face when they speak out about sexism, misogyny, toxic masculinity, and VAW?
I don’t even know if I feel comfortable calling them challenges because women in this space receive so much worse of a backlash than me (and men like me). The majority of the backlash ends up being men questioning my masculinity and my motivation behind making this content, but it all really falls flat when they find out that I’ve been married for 15 years and have been writing and researching about these issues since before Facebook was even invented–clearly I was playing the long game and knew that 20 years later there would be a market for this.
The sad reality is that, despite there being far less of a negative backlash toward men that speak on these issues, there still aren’t nearly enough men choosing to use their platforms to speak about these issues. The loss of social status that comes with not focusing your content solely for the benefit of other men is apparently still a very strong deterrent.
5. What advice would you give to any male influencer who is keen to help create social change by using social media to raise awareness about VAW and show their solidarity and support for women’s human rights?
I think the most important thing is to make sure you are actually living what you speak about online. I’ve lost count of the number of “good guys” who turned out to be predators and if it turns out that your solidarity was simply a show, you end up doing so much more harm than if you had just stayed silent.
For those men to whom that doesn’t apply, keep in mind that you don’t need a million followers to spread awareness and make change. Also, remember not to speak over women, but to use your privilege to help amplify their voices. Most change for most people is still going to come from the work we do offline and from our one-on-one conversations. Even if your video is getting 20 views. Maybe one of those views is from a guy that could benefit from a conversation with you in the comment section. If enough men were having more of those conversations, we would start seeing change quickly.