Think maybe most proper formal way to delineate between "alt right" and its successive discontents is a frame where capital's ruthless reification mechanisms took an aberrant social construct/assumption group and *rationalized* it.
It's easy to forget that for a remarkably long time (2 years or so) posting racism/antisemitism etc *actually did* make a discursive dent. It has ofc now been walled off into a discrete marketing demo. Alt right was briefly a kinda spooky spark with real political potential-- Marx's "tragedy". Later iterations operate rationally in their historical conditions... Marx's "farce".
There's an obvious OWS resonance here that is tired and hackneyed but also obviously true.
So, what or who is the actual alt-right? It seems a bit like hipster aesthetics to me — the writers I’ve heard of are fake crap, the *real* right-wingers are some guys I’ve never heard of. I’m not sure anything coherent exists out there.
So "cultural Marxism" is a dog whistle for anti semitism? In a bizarre twist Nazis showed up at a Let Women Speak rally in Melbourne Oz. Terfs + Nazis?!
I think it's fascinating what you articulate here about idea groupings emerging in the media of the internet and then crossing back over into the real world as people become subjects of the new social norms through social media. In this sense, the internet is like an imaginal play space, which has creative potential, but currently is unmoored in post-modernism and disembodied by definition.
It’s hard to know the start of the movement, but I have my own theory based on how it grew on Reddit.
It started as extremist groups, formed in the dreadful echo chamber of The Internet, pushing the limit of Right wing ideology. Take any Right wing view and push it to its logical absurdity.
So first we had Libertarianism. Somewhat fringe, but still recognizable. Distill it down, and you get Anarcho-Capitalism, the alt-right variant. Libertarian: “Limited government is always better!” Anarcho-Capitalist: “Remember when we could own people? That was awesome. You can really drive an economy with slaves.”
Take reactionary viewpoints from the right, like Feminism = bad. Add an extra helping of misogyny and rage, and you get the three misogynistic alt-right movements. Men’s Rights: I got fucked over in my divorce, so women have too much power. Redpill: I never learned empathy and am lonely, so women owe me sex. Gamergate: People are making games but not for MEEE? NO GURLS ALLOWED. (Unless they are sluts.)
It goes on. Take any mainstream Conservative view, and there was an alt-right edition. Now, I believe this started somewhat organically, but something many of us noticed on Reddit is communication doesn’t go in a straight line in the modern age. Ideas propagate with memes, people belong to more than one group. Because Reddit is anonymous but still has usernames you can track, you can see the same people starting to comment in multiple alt-right communities more and more.
Now. Enter the deliberate minds. The Propagandists. I know of at least three players.
1. The Right wing big money, i.e., the Kochs and others, see an opportunity to spread Conservatism to a new generation. Liberals take for granted that time is on our side, and this faction wanted to prove us wrong by getting in the heads of the younger generation.
2. Foreign Powers, particularly Russia. Things have calmed down a bit since they were outted, but it was pretty easy to spot the propaganda accounts if you knew what to look for back in the early 2010s.. Mostly anti-federal government and anti-semetic stuff with a side of Putin worship. One of my (former) friends fell down this hole to my dismay. His family was originally from Russia, and he went from typical gamer progressive nerd to posting pepe memes to to complaining about Jewish conspiracies in like a year. Twitter account had a picture of shirtless Putin. Ugg.
3. Last but not least... the Nazis. Stormfront has a dedicated propaganda group to spread their ideology. People's who have spied on their forums know them to use Reddit’s own vote system against it, manipulating racist material to the top. They started small, infiltrating the other communities, eventually providing a guiding message.
All this shit went down pre-Trump.
So if you were to Venn diagram the whole thing over time, you’d see a bunch of circles starting somewhat separate then slowly coming together merging into one larger group over time; then three outside circles close in from the sides, touching, fighting, vying for control to absorb the whole, culminating in the movement, such as it is, coming into the mainstream.
Whew sorry that got a little long winded. I looked up my notes from the meta Reddits from back in the day.
You were smart enough to leave twitter. Now it seems you are stupid enough to return to it: I suspect twitter is what misled you into writing this nonsensical piece.
BAP is (at minimum "reads like") a gay neo-fascist. Anyone who's into his brand of vitalism is more or less definitionally a male homosexuality enthusiast.
I'm not putting forth the idea there's anything wrong with sucking cock as a man; you do you. But it has to be said; BAP is Ernst Rohm, not Ernst Junger.
I see an article like this and often just think "jesus, what are the nerds on about now?" The labyrinth of memes, terminology, labels, and what seems like ultra-navel gazing inside-baseball to me as a "normie" just makes me glaze over. However, the other side of me who tends to be fascinated by "industry jargon" of things like trades, skills, and weird hobbies and fandoms feels compelled to learn what it all means.
I feel like I have been following you for years, but never really "joined up" to the area you operate in. For me it feels like doing that would play to some of the parts of me that won't lead to a sound mind in some fundamental way.
Sort of like how I know I love speed of any type, so I tend to treat things like Adderal, Coke, etc like most people do turkey. Maybe once a year, and only if everyone else is doing it.
Anyways, I love hearing you talk, I admire the way you think, and I have seen you talk to so many folks I respect, that at this point I have to support you if for no other reason than what your kind of "outreach" to the normies yields, and what benefit I have specifically gained from it.
Also, any small thing I can do to get anyone away from twitter and its ilk is time and money well spend to me. No "touch grass" or whatever the phrase / meme is, but more like "Don't get all fucked up, permanently." So I will be reading and listening and all that. Just keep doing what you WANT to do, and know there are plenty of normies or casuals out there benefitting from your stuff, even if indirectly. So, thanks and all that. Also if I end up on some kind of Google "persons of interest" blacklist I am blaming you directly. :D
An interesting phenomenon, relevant to this discussion, is how much of the dissident right has embraced Ted Kaczynski and his ideas. That is a trajectory I would not have predicted, given that Ted's ideas align with radical environmentalism, which at the time of his arrest in the 90s would have been associated with the radical Left.... Ted K makes modern technology the primary culprit in what has gone wrong with the world.
Think maybe most proper formal way to delineate between "alt right" and its successive discontents is a frame where capital's ruthless reification mechanisms took an aberrant social construct/assumption group and *rationalized* it.
It's easy to forget that for a remarkably long time (2 years or so) posting racism/antisemitism etc *actually did* make a discursive dent. It has ofc now been walled off into a discrete marketing demo. Alt right was briefly a kinda spooky spark with real political potential-- Marx's "tragedy". Later iterations operate rationally in their historical conditions... Marx's "farce".
There's an obvious OWS resonance here that is tired and hackneyed but also obviously true.
So, what or who is the actual alt-right? It seems a bit like hipster aesthetics to me — the writers I’ve heard of are fake crap, the *real* right-wingers are some guys I’ve never heard of. I’m not sure anything coherent exists out there.
So "cultural Marxism" is a dog whistle for anti semitism? In a bizarre twist Nazis showed up at a Let Women Speak rally in Melbourne Oz. Terfs + Nazis?!
I think it's fascinating what you articulate here about idea groupings emerging in the media of the internet and then crossing back over into the real world as people become subjects of the new social norms through social media. In this sense, the internet is like an imaginal play space, which has creative potential, but currently is unmoored in post-modernism and disembodied by definition.
It’s hard to know the start of the movement, but I have my own theory based on how it grew on Reddit.
It started as extremist groups, formed in the dreadful echo chamber of The Internet, pushing the limit of Right wing ideology. Take any Right wing view and push it to its logical absurdity.
So first we had Libertarianism. Somewhat fringe, but still recognizable. Distill it down, and you get Anarcho-Capitalism, the alt-right variant. Libertarian: “Limited government is always better!” Anarcho-Capitalist: “Remember when we could own people? That was awesome. You can really drive an economy with slaves.”
Take reactionary viewpoints from the right, like Feminism = bad. Add an extra helping of misogyny and rage, and you get the three misogynistic alt-right movements. Men’s Rights: I got fucked over in my divorce, so women have too much power. Redpill: I never learned empathy and am lonely, so women owe me sex. Gamergate: People are making games but not for MEEE? NO GURLS ALLOWED. (Unless they are sluts.)
It goes on. Take any mainstream Conservative view, and there was an alt-right edition. Now, I believe this started somewhat organically, but something many of us noticed on Reddit is communication doesn’t go in a straight line in the modern age. Ideas propagate with memes, people belong to more than one group. Because Reddit is anonymous but still has usernames you can track, you can see the same people starting to comment in multiple alt-right communities more and more.
Now. Enter the deliberate minds. The Propagandists. I know of at least three players.
1. The Right wing big money, i.e., the Kochs and others, see an opportunity to spread Conservatism to a new generation. Liberals take for granted that time is on our side, and this faction wanted to prove us wrong by getting in the heads of the younger generation.
2. Foreign Powers, particularly Russia. Things have calmed down a bit since they were outted, but it was pretty easy to spot the propaganda accounts if you knew what to look for back in the early 2010s.. Mostly anti-federal government and anti-semetic stuff with a side of Putin worship. One of my (former) friends fell down this hole to my dismay. His family was originally from Russia, and he went from typical gamer progressive nerd to posting pepe memes to to complaining about Jewish conspiracies in like a year. Twitter account had a picture of shirtless Putin. Ugg.
3. Last but not least... the Nazis. Stormfront has a dedicated propaganda group to spread their ideology. People's who have spied on their forums know them to use Reddit’s own vote system against it, manipulating racist material to the top. They started small, infiltrating the other communities, eventually providing a guiding message.
All this shit went down pre-Trump.
So if you were to Venn diagram the whole thing over time, you’d see a bunch of circles starting somewhat separate then slowly coming together merging into one larger group over time; then three outside circles close in from the sides, touching, fighting, vying for control to absorb the whole, culminating in the movement, such as it is, coming into the mainstream.
Whew sorry that got a little long winded. I looked up my notes from the meta Reddits from back in the day.
"Maybe trads, who long to “RETVRN,” often to the 1950s (and bafflingly not to some point before the 1920s)"
Everyone has access to documentaries about the 1950s, like "I Love Lucy" and "Leave It To Beaver."
You were smart enough to leave twitter. Now it seems you are stupid enough to return to it: I suspect twitter is what misled you into writing this nonsensical piece.
"For them, feminism is downstream of Jewish power. "
Jeffrey Epstein?
Harvey Weinstein?
LMAO, I needed a good laugh!
BAP is (at minimum "reads like") a gay neo-fascist. Anyone who's into his brand of vitalism is more or less definitionally a male homosexuality enthusiast.
I'm not putting forth the idea there's anything wrong with sucking cock as a man; you do you. But it has to be said; BAP is Ernst Rohm, not Ernst Junger.
What's next?
I see an article like this and often just think "jesus, what are the nerds on about now?" The labyrinth of memes, terminology, labels, and what seems like ultra-navel gazing inside-baseball to me as a "normie" just makes me glaze over. However, the other side of me who tends to be fascinated by "industry jargon" of things like trades, skills, and weird hobbies and fandoms feels compelled to learn what it all means.
I feel like I have been following you for years, but never really "joined up" to the area you operate in. For me it feels like doing that would play to some of the parts of me that won't lead to a sound mind in some fundamental way.
Sort of like how I know I love speed of any type, so I tend to treat things like Adderal, Coke, etc like most people do turkey. Maybe once a year, and only if everyone else is doing it.
Anyways, I love hearing you talk, I admire the way you think, and I have seen you talk to so many folks I respect, that at this point I have to support you if for no other reason than what your kind of "outreach" to the normies yields, and what benefit I have specifically gained from it.
Also, any small thing I can do to get anyone away from twitter and its ilk is time and money well spend to me. No "touch grass" or whatever the phrase / meme is, but more like "Don't get all fucked up, permanently." So I will be reading and listening and all that. Just keep doing what you WANT to do, and know there are plenty of normies or casuals out there benefitting from your stuff, even if indirectly. So, thanks and all that. Also if I end up on some kind of Google "persons of interest" blacklist I am blaming you directly. :D
An interesting phenomenon, relevant to this discussion, is how much of the dissident right has embraced Ted Kaczynski and his ideas. That is a trajectory I would not have predicted, given that Ted's ideas align with radical environmentalism, which at the time of his arrest in the 90s would have been associated with the radical Left.... Ted K makes modern technology the primary culprit in what has gone wrong with the world.