“You’re not being too paranoid.“
December 15, 2017 10:50 AM   Subscribe

For the blissfully unaware, Anglin is a neo-Nazi troll and propagandist who runs The Daily Stormer, one of the more prominent sites of the white supremacist web. The passages selected by Vox Day in his blog post suggested that Anglin is persnickety about detail and presentation ― except on the subject of the Jews, who are to be blamed “for everything.”

HuffPost has acquired the 17-page document in its entirety, as well as transcripts from an IRC channel where the document was shared in an effort to recruit new writers. It’s more than a style guide for writing internet-friendly neo-Nazi prose; it’s a playbook for the alt-right.
posted by The Whelk (59 comments total) 47 users marked this as a favorite
 
Point of order, don't use "neo-"Nazi.
Nazi is sufficient.
posted by signal at 10:54 AM on December 15, 2017 [34 favorites]


He seems nice.
*cough*
posted by notsnot at 10:54 AM on December 15, 2017


It's insidious and terrifying that the Nazis have learned to co-opt the language of the left in order to further their agendas.
posted by Kitteh at 11:08 AM on December 15, 2017 [3 favorites]


One of the best things is that they pay $14.88 for an article, which is a terrible wage.
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:08 AM on December 15, 2017 [8 favorites]


It's insidious and terrifying that the Nazis have learned to co-opt the language of the left in order to further their agendas.

But we've already been seeing this. Shit, the right realized the language of moral relativism was a useful tool before they even finished railing against it.
posted by PMdixon at 11:12 AM on December 15, 2017 [19 favorites]


I knew the Gamergate guys were the same guys but boy is it shocking how apparent it is that they are the exact same guys.
posted by Artw at 11:14 AM on December 15, 2017 [47 favorites]


Like, everything about this is horrible, but yeah, the $14.88 pay is mind-blowingly juvenile and shitty. It's like if Nazi Beavis and Nazi Butt-Head ran a Nazi blog.

An important takeaway is near the end: that even when they're fucking around, they're deadly serious. Even if tomorrow Vox Day is like, lol, just trollin you libs, triggered!, this is still a thing that somebody wrote and they definitely, definitely mean it.

Andrew Anglin wants you to think he’s just a troll, that he’s spouting incendiary crap for no other reason than to get a rise out of you. Remember that the irony and the coy misdirection are all in service of tricking people into following him on his path toward a white supremacist state. This is what he believes.
posted by uncleozzy at 11:15 AM on December 15, 2017 [13 favorites]


"Ironic" nazism should always, always be assumed to be the real thing. It's not 2005 anymore, you can't do that Prince Harry shit.
posted by Artw at 11:17 AM on December 15, 2017 [23 favorites]


ContraPoints is a YouTuber with a great video on this topic: Decrypting the Alt-Right: How to Recognize a Fascist

Remember: Reporting what fascists say at face value is just repeating fascist propaganda.
posted by AlSweigart at 11:20 AM on December 15, 2017 [22 favorites]


It's like if Nazi Beavis and Nazi Butt-Head ran a Nazi blog.

Heh-heh. Heh-heh. Heil! HEIL!
posted by elsietheeel at 11:27 AM on December 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


Like, everything about this is horrible, but yeah, the $14.88 pay is mind-blowingly juvenile and shitty.

Juvenile is the word. But do they want serious writers? Serious writers have serious writer expectations. It is juvenile money. It is the sort of money that seems cool if you aren't someone who pays bills, but rather someone who lives with your parents and sit on the internet all day. It makes sense in the way that Nigerian spam emails make sense: It weeds out the people you don't want to deal with, the professionals who might create professional problems.
posted by Sequence at 11:28 AM on December 15, 2017 [4 favorites]


For Canadians who have to endure Faith Goldy's seemingly indestructible presence in the pseudo-media scene (she's now back on her own YouTube channel, charming her brown-shirted fanboiz with rants against everything from "globalists" to soybeans), it's worth having a listen to her fateful post-Charlottesville interview with The Daily Stormer's podcast, the Kyber Report - the one that got her fired from The Rebel. Whether or not she has studied their style-guide, she certainly conforms to its main guidelines, both in that interview and in more recent interviews and monologues.
posted by senor biggles at 11:37 AM on December 15, 2017 [3 favorites]


It's not 2005 anymore, you can't do that Prince Harry shit.

(Still not convinced Prince Harry isn't a genuine Nazi. I mean, he's doing the modern English royal thing of never making any public statements about his actual beliefs, but that could easily be him lying low until the time is right to go full Edward VIII.)
posted by tobascodagama at 11:42 AM on December 15, 2017 [4 favorites]


Even if tomorrow Vox Day is like, lol, just trollin you libs, triggered!, this is still a thing that somebody wrote and they definitely, definitely mean it.

As an aside, has anyone pointed out to these cretins that they live their lives permanently triggered?
posted by Thorzdad at 11:43 AM on December 15, 2017 [3 favorites]


$14.88 pay is mind-blowingly juvenile and shitty

It's symbolic. They don't actually want professional writers, and at the same time they don't want volunteers - the $14.88 is a symbolic payment - it signifies the commitment they are hoping for in their correspondents.
posted by Grangousier at 11:44 AM on December 15, 2017 [3 favorites]


"Ironic" nazism should always, always be assumed to be the real thing.

I think it's OK to punch them ironically, too -- ironic fist in a velvet glove.
posted by chavenet at 11:49 AM on December 15, 2017 [10 favorites]


Still not convinced Prince Harry isn't a genuine Nazi.

Prince Harry is engaged to a woman of mixed descent, so while it doesn't necessarily follow, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and chalk up the Nazi costume to stupid juvenile Sandhurst antics.


For now.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 11:50 AM on December 15, 2017 [13 favorites]


Not to derail too much about Prince Harry, but he's made public statements calling out sexism and racism in relation to his fiance so I'm going to guess he's grown up quite a bit in the past 12 years.
posted by elsietheeel at 11:55 AM on December 15, 2017 [25 favorites]


It's insidious and terrifying that the Nazis have learned to co-opt the language of the left in order to further their agendas.

Why do you think they called themselves National Socialists?
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:02 PM on December 15, 2017 [13 favorites]


I think I will start blaming the soybeans, for everything. What is that smell? I feel a lump. This country is going down the soybean filled tubes. Soybeans are everywhere taking jobs from regular, white, American beans. Dang, soybean juice is taking away the jobs from white American milk cows. Wait, I forgot my header.
posted by Oyéah at 12:08 PM on December 15, 2017 [3 favorites]


Oh. Right. Fourteen. Eighty-eight.

$14.88
posted by glonous keming at 12:18 PM on December 15, 2017 [13 favorites]


You know the literal new online right wing idiot insult is “soy boy” right?
posted by The Whelk at 12:18 PM on December 15, 2017 [4 favorites]


- the $14.88 is a symbolic payment -

14 words + 88 (HH) . Sheesh.
posted by mikelieman at 12:20 PM on December 15, 2017 [2 favorites]


I think I will start blaming the soybeans, for everything.

Soyim?
posted by chavenet at 12:21 PM on December 15, 2017 [5 favorites]


Figures they'd still be obsessing about soy. Don't they know all the cool betas are drinking almond milk now?
posted by tobascodagama at 12:21 PM on December 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


I've been amusing myself within the MTG community by taking the insult of "beta" as a compliment. The first sets of Magic were called "Alpha" and "Beta," and Alpha had a few peculiarities, so "Beta" versions of cards are generally the most desired.

Therefore, being a "beta cuck" is a huge step up from being a "4th edition cuck".
posted by explosion at 12:27 PM on December 15, 2017 [3 favorites]


I feel like everyone today should be forced to read Vonnegut's 'Mother Night'.
posted by runcibleshaw at 1:08 PM on December 15, 2017 [2 favorites]


"Ironic" nazism should always, always be assumed to be the real thing. It's not 2005 anymore, you can't do that Prince Harry shit.

Popehat (yes, that one) asserts that racism/nazism is like goatfucking.

And I'll let Paul McCartney explain the rest and just add that ironic goat fucking is still fucking a goat.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 1:12 PM on December 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


It's insidious and terrifying that the Nazis have learned to co-opt the language of the left in order to further their agendas.

It helps to remember that that's embedded in their very origins -- Nazi being short for National Socialist (the full name of the party was actually the National Socialist German Workers Party, or Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei), a name specifically chosen in 1920 in part to appeal to left-wing workers who would otherwise be drawn to actual socialist parties that would oppose the Nazis.
posted by the return of the thin white sock at 1:22 PM on December 15, 2017 [9 favorites]


Indeed. Part of the cautionary tale of 1930s Germany is that, while the Nazis were happy to poach plenty of members and even a few leaders from Germany's socialist and workers' parties, they were purged as soon as the Nazi Party seized control of the government and no longer needed them.
posted by tobascodagama at 1:40 PM on December 15, 2017 [11 favorites]


Yeah, National Socialism is a phrased that way to distinguish itself from International Socialism. The Soviet Union never practiced Communism, but instead adopted a 'transitionary' state which was supposed to prepare the people for the stateless Communist utopia in the future, towards which everyone had to work.

That was International Socialism, which sought to break down national borders, and National Socialism distinguishes itself from that by emphasizing that their brand of socialism embraces nationalism instead of rejecting it.

"We are not just workers of the world, we have German Pride!"

The similarity in naming is appropriate, because either ideology is just a different way to paint the socialist pig. Demogogues gotta demogogue.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 2:05 PM on December 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


The similarity in naming is appropriate, because either ideology is just a different way to paint the socialist pig

Wow. I guess I shouldn't be surprised somebody went there after this last election.

demagogues gonna demagogue indeed.
posted by evilDoug at 2:18 PM on December 15, 2017 [5 favorites]


because either ideology is just a different way to paint the socialist pig

Boy have I got news for you about the titmouse...
posted by combinatorial explosion at 2:47 PM on December 15, 2017 [2 favorites]


Nazi being short for National Socialist (the full name of the party was actually the National Socialist German Workers Party, or Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

Technically, they didn't even call themselves Nazis initially. “Nazi” used to be a regional diminutive form of the personal name “Ignatz” (or Ignatius outside of Germany), and “Nazi” was a character in a wave of jokes around in Germany around the turn of the 20th century, a not-too-bright ultra-conservative Catholic rube from Bavaria or Austria. That “Nationalsozialist” lent itself to this unfortunate abbreviation was an own-goal too good to pass up. Then, of course, they got power and nobody made jokes about poor dumb Nazi from his Alpine village any more.
posted by acb at 5:43 PM on December 15, 2017 [14 favorites]


I just don't want to even give on iota of my energy to the alt right, or nazis, or haters. I didn't even know about the soy-boy epithet, yeah, I have skipped them entirely. However, if I hear or see this stuff IRL, I am never quiet about it. Regardless, absolutely regardless. That makes me all those names, yes it does.
posted by Oyéah at 5:52 PM on December 15, 2017


The similarity in naming is appropriate, because either ideology is just a different way to paint the socialist pig. Demogogues gotta demogogue.

This is called "horseshoe theory" because anyone who could believe it has been hit in the head with one. That the fascists of the '30s deliberately tried to steal the left's thunder is no secret. That the Soviet Union of the '30s was an utterly horrific place if you were a peasant or another supposed enemy of the state is plain. That the fascist states of the '30s were horrific places for minorities and the insufficiently "pure" is plain. But to imply that they shared the same end goal because they both used the word "socialist" in their propaganda is totally asinine. And it's "demagogue."
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 5:56 PM on December 15, 2017 [20 favorites]


"We are not just workers of the world, we have German Pride!"

The similarity in naming is appropriate, because either ideology is just a different way to paint the socialist pig. Demogogues gotta demogogue.


Remind me again which parties the NSDAP got support from and who made him chancellor?

tl;dr u r a right wing ignoramus
posted by PMdixon at 6:01 PM on December 15, 2017 [5 favorites]


The horseshoe theory applies on the theory of individual motivation, in that there are individuals who are intrinsically driven to extreme ideologies, with the ideologies' content being secondary. It has been noted that, had the whites won after the Russian Revolution and established some sort of right-wing authoritarian state, Stalin would probably have been just as much at home running that as the USSR. And then there's Julian Assange, who used to be regarded as part of the anti-American far left.
posted by acb at 6:02 PM on December 15, 2017 [5 favorites]


The end goal that they shared was to exploit people's inability to distinguish between ideology and policy in order to seize power. This is a problem that socialist movements constantly fall into because just like capitalism, the theory tries to reduce social dynamics to a linear system and can't cope with the existence of feedback loops that are exploited by fascists to corrupt the language of those systems.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 6:56 PM on December 15, 2017


All the 19th centuries ideologies try to explain society in terms of a simple chain of causality that lets people construct a comforting narrative, and this makes them easy to sell. But as the study of nonlinear, chaotic systems developed over the 20th century, we have learned that the behavior of ecosystems is not governed by causality in such an easy-to-describe way. Attempts to do so have constantly ended in disaster, as can be easy to see in our affects on the environment, and for some, more difficult to see in our effects on society.

The erosion and corruption of our social systems has been largely driven by exploitation of these nonlinear effects, and our current political and economic theories have proven themselves unable to adapt. We need new theories of governance that incorporate 20th century developments in mathematics, logic, and philosophy to be able to analyze such systems and build policy that can actually withstand attacks by bad actors.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 7:16 PM on December 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


Also, guillotines.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 7:29 PM on December 15, 2017 [5 favorites]


The "banality of evil" indeed.
posted by nanojath at 9:16 PM on December 15, 2017


posted by I-Write-Essays


...are you sure?
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 2:12 AM on December 16, 2017 [2 favorites]


I feel like everyone today should be forced to read Vonnegut's 'Mother Night'.
posted by runcibleshaw at 1:08 PM on December 15 [2 favorites +] [!]


Fight fascism with fascism!

(Sorry, couldn't resist. I heartily suggest everyone ought to read Mother Night!)
posted by chavenet at 3:34 AM on December 16, 2017 [1 favorite]


Ok, ok. I have been made to understand that if you are critical of socialism, you can't possibly be for progressive policy and must be a right wing asshole. But if you call for violent overthrow of the government, everyone loves you. Ideological tribalism will be the death of us...
posted by I-Write-Essays at 8:28 AM on December 16, 2017


Here's an idea, maybe we could lighten the fuck up. You don't like socialism I-Write-Essays, got it. However you're not a right wing asshole. Also got it. Maybe you could stop with the hyperbole. You got something better (I mean something better than libertarian, but nice)? If not, you've pretty much said all you need to say.
posted by evilDoug at 8:43 AM on December 16, 2017 [1 favorite]


So, the start of an idea that I would like to discuss is that copyright and patents should be nontransferable and only assigned to individual humans. An extension of that would be that corporations should not be allowed to own property, such that all assets must be assigned to individuals. I would love to hear what problems such a plan would have, but I feel like it plugs one of the feedback loops that has allowed capital to concentrate and hide itself, and infect our entire political system.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 8:59 AM on December 16, 2017


Perhaps you could start a blog and write essays about that?
posted by mephron at 9:35 AM on December 16, 2017 [6 favorites]


Maybe that's not such a good starting point. My principle point of view is that the means of production should be owned by individuals, not corporations, and not the government. Unregulated growth is called cancer, and the existence of too-big-to-fail institutions makes our society brittle and subject to massive systemic risk. Socialism is not an acceptable solution because its approach is to simply give the means of production to the government, the biggest baddest corporation of them all.

We need to start with some really powerful trust-busting, and follow it up with distributed regulation mechanisms that won't be as easy to capture as a centralized authority.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 9:36 AM on December 16, 2017


Oh, I like both of those, I-Write-Essays, along with making Church's pay taxes.
I get where your coming from with your view of socialism but don't wholly agree. I'm fine with people being held accountable (in fact I think it's paramount) but I think we need strong safety nets, universal healthcare, & strong public education. All things that require government intervention and shouldn't be at the behest of for profit institutions.
Also, prisons for profit is such an obvious awful idea.
I suppose though, we're getting off track here.
posted by evilDoug at 9:45 AM on December 16, 2017 [1 favorite]


If you find Anglin and the Stormer revolting, please donate to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is taking legal action against him and other hate group leaders. Specifically there are lawsuits arising from the hate event in Charlottesville that name Anglin among many other organizers. In addition, there is a lawsuit naming him alone regarding harassment of Tanya Gersh of Whitefish, MT. In line with the cowardice and lack of accountability displayed in those writer's guidelines, Anglin went into hiding over the summer after the lawsuit was filed, though finally his legal team has responded, arguing freedom of speech.

The SPLC is fighting the good fight and could use your support, both financially and in terms of membership numbers and advocacy. If the Huffpost article angers you, here's a way you can channel that energy to fight these dangerous creeps.
posted by Sublimity at 11:08 AM on December 16, 2017 [3 favorites]


I've been amusing myself within the MTG community

Oh man the shit that's finally come to a head in the Magic the Gathering community has been so sad and frustrating and rage inducing. I've been pondering an FPP but it's a little too ragey for my tastes. Important though.

Long story short there is a bad faith actor in the MTG community. He was once the most popular Magic channel on YouTube. He would get in fights with other creators, he wasn't able to build relationships in the community. He got pretty bitter, and as women in Magic/harassment issues would come up every few months, he would make videos targetting the women who were speaking up. He's fallen pretty far down the alt right/gamer gate style rabbit hole, insulting and harassing most other community creators and those who stand up for them, directing his followers to do the same, and hiding behind "opinion" and "criticism" when called out.

A few weeks ago a female cosplayer who had been one of the most public facing representatives of the game announced she would be ceasing her association with the game, citing in large part this man's behavior. Many many other creators finally spoke up in public about how he has treated them. He has since been banned from the game's organized events for life, although it is unclear how much he ever actually played.

He's of course gone nuclear since, trying to organize good natured complaint campaigns on his behalf while simultaneously continuing to target those who speak against him, with an army of like minds and sock puppets using every tactic described in this post. It's been a very trying few weeks in the community as the ugly seeping side has been exposed to the light, and those on that side have no interest in good faith discussion or discovering compassion.

I've avoided naming names here on purpose but a good breakdown of the early stages of this most recent explosion can be found in this Polygon article.
posted by yellowbinder at 12:43 PM on December 16, 2017 [2 favorites]


Frankly, that document is a piece of propaganda masquerading as a style guide.

It starts off with a few grammatical rules, but with notable omissions. I mean, what kind of style guide neglects to mention serial commas?

It's almost as if the site style stuff is there at the beginning just to ease people into reading the pages of racist bullshit that follow.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 2:05 PM on December 16, 2017 [2 favorites]


I'm really upset that HuffPo have made this an uncopyable document. I can't even cut and paste from it.

That said, take a look at page 7 where Anglin gives a list of the tags he uses for Google News. Jews and race-related things I would have expected, but his tags include "Erdogan" and "Putin". I wonder what's going on there?
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:25 PM on December 16, 2017 [1 favorite]


"I'm really upset that HuffPo have made this an uncopyable document. I can't even cut and paste from it."
Share and enjoy [.pdf, cut-n-pasteable]
posted by Pinback at 7:02 PM on December 16, 2017 [2 favorites]


Thanks!
posted by Joe in Australia at 8:34 PM on December 16, 2017


Also related to Magic, apparently a Level 3 Judge has recently been decertified. The statement about it by the Canadian Magic judges group is good. This part is noteworthy; I don't remember seeing anything similar in previous statements like this:
4. This is painful for everyone – and I understand you may have strong desires to reach out to Chris to provide “emotional support” during this “rough time.” Please understand that I believe the decision taken by the JCC was absolutely correct and necessary. We have (at least) one victim to keep in mind here, and I’d like to ask you to avoid any actions that might be meant as “emotional support” but could be misinterpreted as support for Chris’s behaviour. If you are unsure how to thread this particularly awkward needle then I suggest erring on the side of the victim and not lending any public support to Chris at this time.
posted by Lexica at 8:41 PM on December 16, 2017 [4 favorites]




C S Lewis, for all his faults, was on to something when he described the uses of humour in The Screwtape Letters:
The real use of Jokes or Humour is in quite a different direction, and it is specially promising among the English who take their “sense of humour” so seriously that a deficiency in this sense is almost the only deficiency at which they feel shame. Humour is for them the all-consoling and (mark this) the all-excusing, grace of life. Hence it is invaluable as a means of destroying shame. If a man simply lets others pay for him, he is “mean”; if he boasts of it in a jocular manner and twits his fellows with having been scored off, he is no longer “mean” but a comical fellow. Mere cowardice is shameful; cowardice boasted of with humorous exaggerations and grotesque gestures can passed off as funny. Cruelty is shameful-unless the cruel man can represent it as a practical joke. A thousand bawdy, or even blasphemous, jokes do not help towards a man’s damnation so much as his discovery that almost anything he wants to do can be done, not only without the disapproval but with the admiration of his fellows, if only it can get itself treated as a Joke. And this temptation can be almost entirely hidden from your patient by that English seriousness about Humour. Any suggestion that there might be too much of it can be represented to him as “Puritanical” or as betraying a “lack of humour”.

But flippancy is the best of all. In the first place it is very economical. Only a clever human can make a real Joke about virtue, or indeed about anything else; any of them can be trained to talk as if virtue were funny. Among flippant people the Joke is always assumed to have been made. No one actually makes it; but every serious subject is discussed in a manner which implies that they have already found a ridiculous side to it. If prolonged, the habit of Flippancy builds up around a man the finest armour-plating against the Enemy that I know, and it is quite free from the dangers inherent in the other sources of laughter. It is a thousand miles away from joy it deadens, instead of sharpening, the intellect; and it excites no affection between those who practice it,
posted by Joe in Australia at 8:53 PM on December 27, 2017 [4 favorites]


« Older Are there no workhouses?   |   “Wait...so how many of us are there?” Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments