This website has become the alt-right?s favorite cesspool of hate

[Bladewire]

Great article on the alt-right hate trolls and how they take over online forums

This website has become the alt-right?s favorite cesspool of hate

The internet has given us many things, some of them wonderful and some of them awful. The so-called alt-right?the racist, misogynist collective of angry white men?deserves a place in the digital garbage pile, alongside cyberbullying, revenge porn and ?2 Girls 1 Cup.? (And to a far, far lesser degree, choreographed wedding dance videos.) In short, the alt-right is a product of online troll culture, a direct outgrowth of the internet?s digital Wild West. For years it expanded?or more appropriately, festered?in the dark corners of sites like 4chan and Reddit, where it ultimately became the group that gained peak visibility with the horrible events of Charlottesville.

It?s important to remember that there are no card-carrying members of the alt-right. It?s not an official organization, and alignment is self-defined. What?s collectively described as the alt-right is a loose coalition of overwhelmingly white male representatives of various online communities, including anti-women ?meninists,? gamers, white nationalists, neo-Nazis and their sympathizers, anti-government types, conspiracists, and dudes who?ve just decided that women and people of color are the reason they don?t have dates or C-suite jobs. The alt-right houses all of those groups, but they might not have come together so seamlessly under its big tent were it not for a unifying loathsome cause. Enter Donald J. Trump, King of the Internet Trolls and Patron Saint of Racists. Trump?s campaign?nearly two years of his gross and violent racist, xenophobic and anti-woman rhetoric and behavior?gave these groups a central figure around which to rally. The_Donald, the Reddit community that helped get the president elected, gave them a home base.

Perhaps the best way to describe The_Donald is as the internet hivemind of Trump?s most fervent?and vicious?supporters. Launched in June 2015, it now has nearly 450,000 subscribers, making it one of the most popular subreddits on one of the most popular sites in the United States. The_Donald is like a virtual local watering hole where aggrieved young men can come together, put their differences aside and celebrate the Trump that unites them amidst a cesspool of shared internet ephemera, Holocaust jokes and racist memes. More than a year ago, Vice?s Motherboard summed up The_Donald as ?a disconcerting melting pot of posts that run the gamut from InfoWars-style conspiracies, men?s rights activists and GamerGate-style real and faux outrage, memes and shitposts (basically, jokes that are only meant to be understood by those in the community), and, yes, Donald Trump news.?

As with all fraternal communities, The_Donald users have their own speak. Tim Squirrell, an expert in digital culture, wrote a lengthy piece at Quartz on the unique identifying language markers used by the multiple groups in attendance at The_Donald. He identified the ?4chan Shitposters,? a group that posts ?the most extreme racist, sexist, and anti-Semitic slurs, but without necessarily fully buying into racist ideology.? Consider them trolls who hurl horrific abuse online and then claim innocence with the defense that they were only joking. They most frequently use words like ?Pepe, God Emperor Trump and deus vult? (Latin for ?God wills it,? in this case, meaning Trump?s ascendancy).

Another group Squirrell noted is ?Anti-progressive Gamers,? who you might be familiar with because of their freakouts when fictional characters from fictional movies such as Ghostbusters are recast as women. They frequently toss around terms like ?snowflake, pandering, tumblr, feminist [and] triggering.? The ?Men?s Rights Activists? lean heavily on words like ?cuck? (taken from ?cuckold,? a demeaning term implying male weakness but deployed against any man who disagrees with them), ?bitch? (any woman who won?t sleep with them, aka all of us), and ?beta? (a heterosexual male who treats women like actual human beings and thus gets laid). There are the ?Anti-Globalists,? who rant about ?the establishment, elites? and of course, ?George Soros.? And the ?White Supremacists,? who use a mixed bag of racial slurs and the phrase ?western culture,? a stand-in for ?we?re white and we?re right.?

The_Donald brings all of these groups together into a powerful Trump-worshipping whole. Recognizing the rapid expansion of the group last year, conservative provocateurs like Ann Coulter and Milo Yiannopoulos participated in AMAs (?Ask Me Anything,? or Q&A sessions) hosted by the subreddit. So did Trump himself, who during the campaign and as recently as July has retweeted inflammatory Reddit-generated content. According to Vice?s Motherboard, Reddit administrators took pains to make The_Donald and its often highly offensive output less visible to site visitors, and Gizmodo?s interviews with multiple other subreddit moderators led the outlet to conclude The_Donald is internally regarded as Reddit?s ?most problematic community.? But with exponential growth on their side, members of The_Donald have chided site administrators and all other critics.

?First Reddit ignored our sub,? The_Donald moderators wrote in their announcement of Trump?s AMA, per Motherboard. ?Then Reddit laughed at our sub. Then Reddit fought our sub with Hillary?s paid haters. And now we are winning with our God Emperor, the Nimble Navigator, Mr. Donald J. Trump!?

And to think?the American conversation about online radicalization focuses almost solely on Muslims. But as Tim Squirrell notes, The_Donald is a site ?for disaffected white men from all walks of life to share a communal hatred?They start out in different corners of the internet with different interests and different lexicons?but the more time they spend in [The_Donald], the more pernicious views of the world they are likely to pick up by osmosis.? He continues:
They are forming a coherent group identity, represented in the language they have begun to speak, which coalesces around their common hatred of liberalism and their love of Donald Trump. We?re witnessing the radicalization of young white men through the medium of frog memes. In order to see it, all you need to do is look at the words coming out of their mouths. The alt-right isn?t yet united, but it soon will be.

We?ve seen the deadly results of the alt-right?s actions so far. If what Squirrell writes is true, it bodes terribly for the rest us, but especially to those who are their direct targets. The_Donald is the president?s base. And like the man they put in office, the danger they pose to this country is only growing.

[MiamiBoyz]

[oppoten]

hate hate hate hate hate hate.

If you don't want your privacy invaded then you ARE an anti-semite. Accept it now instead of playing out your inner turmoil on here.

[Bladewire]

Originally Posted by MiamiBoyz

[wehateporn]

[CPA-Rush]

Originally Posted by oppoten

If you don't want your privacy invaded then you ARE an anti-semite.

[DraX]

Understand you fancy the article, but to me it's just another anti-trump anti-white publication. It's like I would say this is "the left haters favorite common ground on the internet". You do realize both camps have groups working online where they in hiding of their own kind can spew out their shit. Like you do here on gfy...

[bronco67]

Originally Posted by DraX

Understand you fancy the article, but to me it's just another anti-trump anti-white publication. It's like I would say this is "the left haters favorite common ground on the internet". You do realize both camps have groups working online where they in hiding of their own kind can spew out their shit. Like you do here on gfy...

So on one side, you have alt-righters spewing hate. One the other side, you have the people against the spewing of hate. So which side are you on?

This is the problem with you assholes. You equate both sides as the same, because you don't know the difference between right and wrong.

Here's where you say you aren't on either side. Right? That's what you guys do.

[Tasty1]

Originally Posted by oppoten

hate hate hate hate hate hate.

If you don't want your privacy invaded then you ARE an anti-semite. Accept it now instead of playing out your inner turmoil on here.

sometimes a lamp with anne frank will do.

[Bladewire]

Originally Posted by bronco67

So on one side, you have alt-righters spewing hate. One the other side, you have the people against the spewing of hate. So which side are you on?

This is the problem with you assholes. You equate both sides as the same, because you don't know the difference between right and wrong.

Here's where you say you aren't on either side. Right? That's what you guys do.

The psychology of it is quite amazing.

Go up to a black guy and say "You're black" you get something like "yeah, and?".

Go up to a racist and say "You're a racist" you get something like "What? No I'm not! How dare you say that?!! You think everyone's racist!" The next day you see their Facebook post of Obama hanging by a noose and blacks on a boat back to Africa

I more respect a racist that's honest about who they are than the ones that deny it while doing/saying racist shit constantly

[Smack dat]

Originally Posted by Bladewire

The psychology of it is quite amazing.

Go up to a black guy and say "You're black" you get something like "yeah, and?".

Go up to a racist and say "You're a racist" you get something like "What? No I'm not! How dare you say that?!! You think everyone's racist!" The next day you see their Facebook post of Obama hanging by a noose and blacks on a boat back to Africa

I more respect a racist that's honest about who they are than the ones that deny it while doing/saying racist shit constantly

There is a bit of a difference between saying "you're black" to a black guy and saying "you're racist" to pretty much anyone. Course they are going to argue about it while a black guy is black.

Stupid.

[Bladewire]

Originally Posted by Smack dat

There is a bit of a difference between saying "you're black" to a black guy and saying "you're racist" to pretty much anyone. Course they are going to argue about it while a black guy is black.

Stupid.

You didn't pay attention. Please clickity the post again and read.

The black guy is black.

The racist is racist.

Not you think the black guy is black, or you think the guy is racist.

[Smack dat]

Originally Posted by Bladewire

You didn't pay attention. Please clickity the post again and read.

The black guy is black.

The racist is racist.

Not you think the black guy is black, or you think the guy is racist.

Sorry, I was paying attention and you are wrong.

[Boozer]

Originally Posted by Bladewire

The psychology of it is quite amazing.

Go up to a black guy and say "You're black" you get something like "yeah, and?".

Go up to a racist and say "You're a racist" you get something like "What? No I'm not! How dare you say that?!! You think everyone's racist!" The next day you see their Facebook post of Obama hanging by a noose and blacks on a boat back to Africa

I more respect a racist that's honest about who they are than the ones that deny it while doing/saying racist shit constantly

Coming from a racist that makes complete sense.

[CaptainHowdy]

Let's just focus on porn ...

[Bladewire]

Originally Posted by Smack dat

Sorry, I was paying attention and you are wrong.

A black guy is black

A racist is a racist

How is that "wrong"?

[Matt 26z]

Originally Posted by bronco67

So on one side, you have alt-righters spewing hate. One the other side, you have the people against the spewing of hate. So which side are you on?

Show me a specific example of one side spewing hate and I'll show you the other side spewing the equivalent hate.

[Bladewire]

Originally Posted by Matt 26z

Show me a specific example of one side spewing hate and I'll show you the other side spewing the equivalent hate.

People like me won't stand by while people try to take rights from others and treat them as sub human.

Racists are on the attack and we resist. You are offense we are defense. You are the agressors of hate we are the defenders of liberty. Real simple

Doesn't mean you're evil, just in a bad place in your life to advocate taking equality from another human being in America. Some day you'll learn and do better I'm confident in that.

[Boozer]

Originally Posted by Bladewire

we are the defenders of liberty.

Hahahahaha.. You want people censored but you are a defender of liberty..

[2MuchMark]

Originally Posted by Matt 26z

Show me a specific example of one side spewing hate and I'll show you the other side spewing the equivalent hate.

How about NO sides spewing hate?

[Bladewire]

Originally Posted by 2MuchMark

How about NO sides spewing hate?

When have racists, KKK & Nazis not spewed hate?

[tfto]

Originally Posted by Bladewire

When have racists, KKK & Nazis not spewed hate?

How do you explain these hate groups? National Socialist Movement, Nation of Islam, New Black Panther Party, BLM, Antifa.

[oppoten]

Originally Posted by 2MuchMark

How about NO sides spewing hate?

You've really done a number on us with your 'hate' meme, I will admit.

What would you say if British colonialists referred to African subjects who sought independence as 'haters'? "No sides spewing hate" = no dissent, no questioning.

To whites reading this...our capacity to feel guilt is noble, and it absolves everything we've done. But it's time to pull up the drawbridge, because they'll exploit the hell out of us if we don't.