User:Pleun/grad/Article1
1) “The Language of the Alt Right” = 2000 words
2) Escapist Realities / alt-realities = 2000
3) suggestions: = 2000
- How does this manifest offline?
- What is the influence of the tech companies and how do they deal with this use of their media?
- How can we demand clarification of this alt-right language and keep communication open?
4) Conclusion = 2000 word
5) Introduction (to be written last) = 2000 words
This chapter:
- What are the online culture wars and which groups
- Why is it important to start paying attention to this yesterday
- What language are they using and why
- Which ideology is behind that (which base beliefs, fears, etc)
- Return of Nationalism in a globalized digital era (bridge to next chapter)
Next chapter:
- Return of Nationalism in a globalized digital era
- filter bubbles, echo chambers
- spreading of information
- Hyperreality --> alt reality
Last chapter
virtual reality politics
Article 1: How is language used in the online culture wars to shape ideology and frame reality?
Contemporary fascism, misogyny, and extreme right ideologies are cultivated in online forums collaboratively. Alt-Right and Leftists ideology is framed with terminology found in nihilist meta-memes and forum-posts which are rapidly evolving and duplicating. The online enthusiasts are creating an impassable forest where normies will easily get lost. Right conservatism and left-wing socialism are reformed with new styles of media-usage, propaganda, and focus of ideology. The Alt-Right is reappropriating everything from entire subcultures to transgression formerly part of the socialist left strategy, is bullying their way to domination and is coining term after term to shape their moral bible.
The importance of the terms these online cultures are using to express and develop their thoughts could be explained by a text written in the fifties after the second world war. Victor Klemperer wrote how the most powerful influence and propaganda of Nazism was exerted by "single words, idioms and sentence structures which were imposed on them in a million repetitions and taken on board mechanically and unconsciously."
- Post-truth
KEY QUESTION
- How is language used in online culture to shape ideology and frame reality?
Online Forces in the US Culture War
Three main groups can be distinguished in these online culture wars. On the right: (1) The Alt-Right and (2) the Manosphere (who could be described as a part of the Alt-Right), and on the left with less specific terminology: (3) The Social Justice Warriors / Tumblr Feminists / Gender Politics Activists. The right-wing side is currently determining the discourse in both online and offline politics.
This might be a quite bold statement, but if you look at the political climate in most western countries the Right has been (re-)gaining a significant amount of influence over the last years. In online environments, the Right has been determining the discourse in a quite literal sense by coining the terms describing the new Left (Social Justice Warrior or in short SJW, for instance) and their cause as well as their own. They have an advantage in any argument by being anti-PC, nihilistic and ironic. This mystifies there words in such way Rightists can turn any argument. Meanwhile, the Left is digging their own politically correct grave. There is nothing less than a witch hunt going on to take down anyone who isn't 100% PC (politically correct), demanding everyone to "Check Their Privilege". This version of the Left is fighting against terms, not creating them.
Slavoj Zizek on Political Correctness, Slavoj Zizek on how Political Correctness elected Donald Drumpf
– Angela Nagle. “Kill All Normies: Online Culture Wars From 4Chan and Tumblr to Drumpf and the Alt-Right.”
Although the Right is gaining influence in political discourse, the Left is gaining it within mainstream media, with successes like #MeToo and the continued debate about gender. The Right responded by declaring war on media itself. Donald Drumpf himself demonized the media frequently during his 2016 campaign and continues to do so in his presidency.
I want to to give a quick note on that I will refer to the Right in the rest of this proposal as both containing the Alt-Right and the Manosphere groups as they are both opposing the new feminist, politically correct Left. The Alt Right is politically active, while the Manosphere not yet. Both fear the decline of western civilization, the Manosphere through feminism and the Alt-Right through the mixture with foreign people with other cultures. Both are interested in strategically fighting for conserving and enhancing what in their view are the pillars and morals of western civilization.
If the right-wing side is not only determining the discourse but also winning the argument at the moment, it is of importance to look at why they do and how they shape their ideology. I believe the jargon created by the Alt-Right is not only the center of their ideology but also deliberately used to form an inclusive group that mystifies outsiders. I want to give a few examples of this jargon to show you what kind of terms are used and how vastly it is interwoven with their vocabulary.
Extremist Vocabulaire
Every key point in their ideology is mirrored in their vocabulary. These words they coin frame their reality and convince and pull in new members. The way they view their "enemies", themselves and society could be understood by looking at this jargon. They even have a term for people who believe in their version of reality and the people who don't, therefore being aware their version differs from the mainstream. I want to give a quick insight in their world by giving two examples of jargon words, and one example of a paragraph full of jargon written on a popular forum that I will translate into normie-English (mainstream English). I will use the forum the Red Pill, used by the Manosphere, a group of men who believe feminism will ultimately cause the decline of western civilization. Their focus is regaining their power on "The Sexual Marketplace" to restore conservative pre-feminist order.
Example 1, term: "cuck"
One term is well described below by Nina Power (Nina Power is a cultural critic, social theorist, philosopher and translator. She is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Roehampton University). She describes the word "cuck" used by the Alt-Right and Manosphere to refer to men who are not only not right-wing, but also not "masculine" (in jargon: not Alpha) enough. She calls the language of the Alt-Right "The New Brutality" and is next to Angela Nagle (Angela Nagle is a writer and researcher, studying for a PhD in internet cultures as a government of Ireland IRCHSS scholar in the Department of Communications at Dublin City University.) one of the most relevant sources I've found when reading critical theory on the Alt-Right.
In this description of the word cuck, the context of the word is of less importance than the usage itself. In whichever context it is used, it is meant as a specific insult that contains a specific ideal about men, which might have slight variations but a similar overall message: "this person is less masculine and less far right than he should be". The popularity (frequency) is of importance (as it tells us how widespread this idea is) even as the person it is directed towards.
Example 2, term: "The Red Pill, Red-Pilled, TRP"
The second example is a piece of jargon used to describe "enlightened" members of the in-crowd within the far Right and the Manosphere. It is also the name of one of its key forums, subreddit: "The Red Pill". Members are "red-pilled", "RP" or "took the red pill". Born from a scene from the 1999 movie The Matrix, it has been used as a metaphor for "true" version versus a "fake" version of reality ever since.
Example 3, a paragraph from a subreddit
I took this paragraph from the subreddit The Red Pill to illustrate their way of writing. On this particular forum, the use of correct grammar and spelling is appreciated, which makes the texts fairly well-written. This posts was categorized as "RANT/VENTING" and has (as of today, 23th of NOV) 20 comments. The author "ImHereForThisSub" is fairly new to the forum, with only one month of joining Reddit and reading TRP theory and posts.
from scarcity mentality when you land a high SMV"
"23 years old, new to TRP, rAFC maybe a month into reading the subreddit and books. Just recently got out of a 3.5y LTR about a month and a half ago, and I've started spinning some plates. Been with 4 girls in the last two weeks, so pretty content with the volume I've been getting. I got with a new plate Friday night, but earlier in the night I gamed an older woman (really just being friendly) at the bar I was at. Long story short, she told me she had a daughter my age that wasn't out and gave me her daughter's number. Saturday night this girl (HB9) was at my house! Absolutely crazy story, but the point of it is that I can't get this girl out of my head. Friday night plate even just hit me up to come over tonight and I turned her down. All I want to do is text HB9 to come over again and do her dirty, but I'm afraid that if I text her I am just giving in to scarcity mentality, seeming needy and pandering to my old AFC ways. I already texted her Sunday night to hang out again and it didn't work out logistically.
I'm going to hold out and wait until she texts me -- I already know its what you guys would recommend, and I'm sure she will text me by the end of the week or weekend. I think my issue is I don't have other plates that have as high of a SMV as her."
Translation:
from scarcity mentality when you land a high Sexual Market Value"
"23 years old, new to The forum The Red Pill, recovering average frustrated chump maybe a month into reading the subreddit and books. Just recently got out of a 3.5y Long Term Relationship about a month and a half ago, and I've started sleeping with different women. Been with 4 girls in the last two weeks, so pretty content with the volume I've been getting. I got with a new woman I only sleep with Friday night, but earlier in the night I gamed an older woman (really just being friendly) at the bar I was at. Long story short, she told me she had a daughter my age that wasn't out and gave me her daughter's number. Saturday night this girl (Hot Bitch, 9 out of 10) was at my house! Absolutely crazy story, but the point of it is that I can't get this girl out of my head. Friday night plate even just hit me up to come over tonight and I turned her down. All I want to do is text Hot Bitch, 9 out of 10 to come over again and do her dirty, but I'm afraid that if I text her I am just giving in to scarcity mentality, seeming needy and pandering to my old Average Frustrated Chump ways. I already texted her Sunday night to hang out again and it didn't work out logistically.
I'm going to hold out and wait until she texts me -- I already know its what you guys would recommend, and I'm sure she will text me by the end of the week or weekend. I think my issue is I don't have other woman I only sleep with that have as high of a Sexual Market Value as her."The jargon used in the paragraph above all link to core ideas within the Manosphere. They function to link theory to practice but also seem to hide the most extreme parts of the texts. When the texts get pure misogynistic, emotional (shame, anger, lust, frustration) or personal jargon is used. A lot of the terms are abbreviated to make them even more unrecognizable. Referring to woman as "plates" is an easy example of how jargon is used to de-humanize, objectify.
IDEAS NEXT ARTICLES
Filtre Bubbles, Echo chambers: Online Escapist Realities
- KEY QUESTION: What is the influence of online message boards on nationalistic ideologies?
- To which extent are the US culture wars influencing The Netherlands? (GLOBAL PHENOMENON, like a virus, it spreads)
Going Offline
- We have seen the first offline excesses
- Project X
- Charlottesville
- Zwarte Piet
- Occupy Wallstreet
Demanding clarification: alt-right lexicon
I think there are only two ways that would have any effect on the growth and influence of this group:
- Firstly, ignoring and therefore starving out the ideology by most media. The ideology will never reach mainstream attention and will only contain a small group with a relatively small impact. The problem with this first method of imploding is it's an act by non-act. I think we are already, especially since events like the protest in Charlottesville where the online war was fought offline, past this option. The rise of an underlying growing discontent within general population that in most extreme forms is expressed within this ideology (and in a watered-down, broader and most influential extend in the election of Donald J. Drumpf as the latest American president) will not only still exist, but probably find other extreme expressions.
- The second way would be to demand constant demystification and clarification. The ironic and nihilistic memes and jargon function as a smokescreen not only between those who affiliate themselves with this group but also between them and outsiders. It is hard to distinguish those sincere and those only trolling and there for the "lulz".
Introduction
unpack:
Contemporary fascism, misogyny, and extreme right ideologies are cultivated in online forums collaboratively. Alt-Right and Leftists ideology is framed with terminology found in nihilist meta-memes and forum-posts which are rapidly evolving and duplicating. The online enthusiasts are creating an impassable forest where normies will easily get lost. Right conservatism and left-wing socialism are reformed with new styles of media-usage, propaganda, and focus of ideology. The Alt-Right is reappropriating everything from entire subcultures to transgression formerly part of the socialist left strategy, is bullying their way to domination and is coining term after term to shape their moral bible.
+ personal reason why
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