Angry Young White Men
February 9, 2018 9:11 AM Subscribe
“The timeline for alt-right killers began on May 23, 2014.
On that day, college sophomore Elliot Rodger stabbed his three roommates to death before driving to a sorority house at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and shooting several women. He then killed or injured several pedestrians with both gunfire and his vehicle before exchanging fire with police and eventually taking his own life. He ultimately killed seven and wounded 14.” “The Alt-Right Is Klling People.” The Southern Poverty Law Center’s in-depth reporting on the online origins, makeup, and murders of America’s misogynistic, white supremacist groups. (CW all links, hate speech, Nazi ideology and iconography)
“I Married A White Supremacist” an Oregon woman accounts her husband’s descent into Neo-Nazism (Eugene Weekly) This Tool Tracks Online Neo-Nazi Locations (Vice) White House to focus solely on “Islamic threats” and reduce focus on domestic terrorism (Reuters)
“I Married A White Supremacist” an Oregon woman accounts her husband’s descent into Neo-Nazism (Eugene Weekly) This Tool Tracks Online Neo-Nazi Locations (Vice) White House to focus solely on “Islamic threats” and reduce focus on domestic terrorism (Reuters)
This post was deleted for the following reason: Heya, maybe reconstruct this tomorrow in a way that doesn't involve throwing a lot of explicit violence on the front page. Totally possible to convey what's gonna be inside instead. -- cortex
And McVeigh drew his own inspiration from Ruby Ridge in 1992, for that matter. There's a whole mess of "alt-right" murders and hate groups stemming from that branch going back into the 90s--but you have to admit, the frequency of terroristic attacks spawning from those murky far-right groups has been dramatically increasing in the past five to ten years. Possibly exponentially so. The phenomenon may not be new; the scale certainly is.
More surprising to me is the omission of Anders Breivik's 2011 mass murder from the list, although his was not an American killing. It was directly influenced by the same hateful communities that spawned the likes of Dylann Roof and Elliot Rodger.
posted by sciatrix at 9:43 AM on February 9, 2018 [4 favorites]
More surprising to me is the omission of Anders Breivik's 2011 mass murder from the list, although his was not an American killing. It was directly influenced by the same hateful communities that spawned the likes of Dylann Roof and Elliot Rodger.
posted by sciatrix at 9:43 AM on February 9, 2018 [4 favorites]
If we could stop calling them "alt-right" killers and name them for what they are instead of sophistring all over the place, it would be super-easy to see that the "timeline" started with, like, the Crusades. Maybe before. Stop allowing them to rebrand themselves.
posted by tzikeh at 9:43 AM on February 9, 2018 [15 favorites]
posted by tzikeh at 9:43 AM on February 9, 2018 [15 favorites]
As I tried to retrace my ex-husband’s descent into madness, my very Jewish computer became an alt-right conspiracy theorist [...] online advertisements included everything right of the aisle, from saving unwed mothers to praying for the heart of America, to religious church tours of the Holy Land, promotional sales for Mylar bags (in what appeared to be a far-sighted effort to prep for the inevitable reign of the Anti-Christ), guns, guns, NRA ads and, yet again, more guns, collector’s coins, how-to advice on hoarding gold and book reviews for authors who re-envisioned history “as it truly happened,” along with white-power graphic tees that made the unabashed claim, “Hitler Was Right.”free speech types are so brave to have enabled overt white supremacist filter bubbles, organizing platforms like 4chan and Trello, and rallies like in Charlottesville
those attitudes in the SPLC article were, last time I frequented reddit, pervasive in many, many of the subreddits I had a presence in especially in weekly 'Dating / Relationship' threads. reading that article was like a vaguely traumatic reliving of years worth of back-and-forths I had with some of the most fucked up people I have ever had the displeasure of talking to. and the scary thing is that, as more and more people become redditors, this attitude just seems to get more and more pervasive. it used to be me and a couple hundred thousand nerd-ass nerds who knew about reddit - now my most basic ass friends are on there on the daily being exposed to this poison without the callus I had built up from being a nerd-ass nerd and from having studied theory in my liberal arts major
posted by runt at 9:44 AM on February 9, 2018 [7 favorites]
2014 is when GamerGate kicked off.
posted by Artw at 9:44 AM on February 9, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by Artw at 9:44 AM on February 9, 2018 [4 favorites]
online advertisements included everything right of the aisle
Could we put a dent in the spread of white fascism by installing good adblockers on every computer? It wouldn't remove the actual posts by people, but it'd slow down the constant barrage of propaganda disguised as sales pitches.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 9:50 AM on February 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
Could we put a dent in the spread of white fascism by installing good adblockers on every computer? It wouldn't remove the actual posts by people, but it'd slow down the constant barrage of propaganda disguised as sales pitches.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 9:50 AM on February 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
which is also to say that these white supremacist values existed before and still do and it's not the fault of the internet for it, exclusively. it's just that I wish I lived in a world where this skeleton in our collective closets was unearthed to be examined carefully so we could prevent future brutalities and pay the proper reparations instead of like a bunch of white fucking neckbeards gleefully dancing with the remains and calling for the creation of millions and millions of more closets and skeletons because isn't white supremacy fun and great
posted by runt at 9:51 AM on February 9, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by runt at 9:51 AM on February 9, 2018 [2 favorites]
Yeah, I don't think that the point is really to find the original ur-guy. Most of these shootings have happened within the last year. And the sort of milieu that encouraged Eliot Rodger is still around; /r/ForeverAlone is, and there's a whole subculture of "incels" (involuntary celibates) that very openly supports Rodger and regularly posts fantasies of murder, rape, incest, pedophilia, etc. They got /r/incels banned, but just moved to another subreddit and a non-reddit forum (which just got delisted by their DNS registry).
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:52 AM on February 9, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:52 AM on February 9, 2018 [4 favorites]
I think the term "alt right" and the pinning to the Internet is useful here. Because Internet culture is a relatively new thing, and it definitely is feeding these hate groups. It's not 100% new, it's the same tired misogynist / racist / homohating bile that has been driving white American men for decades. But it expresses differently, and is tracked differently, on the Internet.
What worries me most is the easy slide online from "I like anime" to "I like anime porn" to "I hate women" to "I want to kill women". Pre-Internet you had to work hard to find other men to radicalize you that way. Now there's whole websites for you.
posted by Nelson at 9:54 AM on February 9, 2018 [11 favorites]
What worries me most is the easy slide online from "I like anime" to "I like anime porn" to "I hate women" to "I want to kill women". Pre-Internet you had to work hard to find other men to radicalize you that way. Now there's whole websites for you.
posted by Nelson at 9:54 AM on February 9, 2018 [11 favorites]
Looking outside the US we also have the Ecole Polytechnique murders in Montreal, 1989. For me it's about recognizing that 4chan or /r/incels did not create these violent, anti-woman ideologies. They have been around forever but now we have the evidence to show that they are not "lone deranged gunmen."
posted by muddgirl at 9:55 AM on February 9, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by muddgirl at 9:55 AM on February 9, 2018 [7 favorites]
Something definitely kicked the MRA/culture wars axis up a notch in the mid 2010s though.
posted by Artw at 10:00 AM on February 9, 2018 [6 favorites]
posted by Artw at 10:00 AM on February 9, 2018 [6 favorites]
Something definitely kicked the MRA/culture wars axis up a notch in the mid 2010s though.
idk, maybe something like...having a black president?
posted by capricorn at 10:06 AM on February 9, 2018 [13 favorites]
idk, maybe something like...having a black president?
posted by capricorn at 10:06 AM on February 9, 2018 [13 favorites]
I fired off that comment pretty quickly and I just realized it sounds like I'm somehow blaming Obama for this. I'm certainly not! But yeah, that's what it is, an anti-Obama backlash.
posted by capricorn at 10:09 AM on February 9, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by capricorn at 10:09 AM on February 9, 2018 [4 favorites]
Or, like having a black president that not all white people hated. If he were near-universally reviled, they'd probably have stuck to grumbling about vote stealing and uppity people of color and the horrible injustice of having one of THEM in charge.
But since he was widely liked, and even his unpopular actions weren't "you are ruining America" but "you are caving to special interests (just like most other presidents, but the point is, caving to ones that aren't helping me)", they started festering.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 10:09 AM on February 9, 2018 [4 favorites]
But since he was widely liked, and even his unpopular actions weren't "you are ruining America" but "you are caving to special interests (just like most other presidents, but the point is, caving to ones that aren't helping me)", they started festering.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 10:09 AM on February 9, 2018 [4 favorites]
Alienation, emotional immaturity and tribal behaviors are pretty much the hallmark of a not-insignificant number of adolescent and young adult males across the board. What seems to have changed is incessant graphic media coverage, farflung gated social networks of like-minds and an exponential increase in lethal civilian firepower. What could possibly go wrong?
posted by jim in austin at 10:17 AM on February 9, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by jim in austin at 10:17 AM on February 9, 2018 [2 favorites]
ctrl + f for "men's rights". The origin of this angry hoard.
posted by all about eevee at 10:23 AM on February 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by all about eevee at 10:23 AM on February 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
re the Obama point - the SPLC released this graphic (from their 2015 report) charting the rise of far-right patriot/militia groups under three different presidents that more or less proves the point
see also: the increased production of Confederate Memorials during Jim Crow and the Civil Rights Era (many by Daughters of the Confederacy type groups who were well-to-do white socialite women)
it ain't all young, white, disaffected men and it's not misogyny centered (though it is certainly related), no matter how white feminism wants to paint it. it's the white supremacy that's embedded in American culture and it's something we're all complicit in, in one way or another
posted by runt at 10:25 AM on February 9, 2018 [4 favorites]
see also: the increased production of Confederate Memorials during Jim Crow and the Civil Rights Era (many by Daughters of the Confederacy type groups who were well-to-do white socialite women)
it ain't all young, white, disaffected men and it's not misogyny centered (though it is certainly related), no matter how white feminism wants to paint it. it's the white supremacy that's embedded in American culture and it's something we're all complicit in, in one way or another
posted by runt at 10:25 AM on February 9, 2018 [4 favorites]
The alt-right is a particular and recent tendency within white supremacy. The whole "Just call them all [my favorite term which I find overarching]" rhetoric obscures specifics and makes it harder to actually discuss trends and divisions within white supremacy, and thus makes it harder to study and deal with them. If you can't keep it in your head that "alt-right" denotes a particular sect of racist, misogynist filth, maybe understand that as your problem rather than insist everybody use (inaccurate and less specific) terms you're more comfortable with.
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:44 AM on February 9, 2018 [8 favorites]
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:44 AM on February 9, 2018 [8 favorites]
it ain't all young, white, disaffected men and it's not misogyny centered (though it is certainly related), no matter how white feminism wants to paint it. it's the white supremacy that's embedded in American culture and it's something we're all complicit in, in one way or another
Patriarchy and white supremacy are intersecting, neither is superior or subordinate to the other, and a relentless and obsessive focus on misogyny (like, even more so than the rest of the right or far right) is in fact a major and particular component of the alt-right, owing in part to the alt-right's roots in the Men's Rights and Pick Up Artist scenes. There's a lot of alt-right dudes who are really angry that there are women who are regarded as valid members of their movement, something you generally don't see in far-right movements (most of which are more traditionally patriarchal as opposed to the seething, passionate misogyny the alt-right traffics in). That's part of what makes the alt-right particular, and such differences are part of why it's important to talk about individual
It isn't really white supremacy, not misogyny, nor is it really misogyny, not white supremacy. Both are present, and relevant, and need addressing.
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:52 AM on February 9, 2018 [2 favorites]
Patriarchy and white supremacy are intersecting, neither is superior or subordinate to the other, and a relentless and obsessive focus on misogyny (like, even more so than the rest of the right or far right) is in fact a major and particular component of the alt-right, owing in part to the alt-right's roots in the Men's Rights and Pick Up Artist scenes. There's a lot of alt-right dudes who are really angry that there are women who are regarded as valid members of their movement, something you generally don't see in far-right movements (most of which are more traditionally patriarchal as opposed to the seething, passionate misogyny the alt-right traffics in). That's part of what makes the alt-right particular, and such differences are part of why it's important to talk about individual
It isn't really white supremacy, not misogyny, nor is it really misogyny, not white supremacy. Both are present, and relevant, and need addressing.
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:52 AM on February 9, 2018 [2 favorites]
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posted by enn at 9:34 AM on February 9, 2018 [7 favorites]