When an intellectual, a privileged position in society, writes "Only someone who has always had enough privilege to never have to reckon with the consequences of one’s words could participate in such a movement and keep up with the profound disengagement it demands. Kierkegaard’s ironist, in other words, has to be a straight white man." about guys who work in gas stations in rural America, I have a hard time taking them seriously.

This author clearly doesn't understand what it is to do something for the lulz. FWIW, it's not a masculine v. feminine thing, or a white vs. nonwhite thing--it's the same urge that helps children across the globe torture animals and set things on fire out of boredom. That's perhaps one of the few truly universal human quirks.

Throughout the article, the author really really wants to present the 'channers, the alt-right, and white supremacists as being the same groups, interchangeable in motive and person. Further, the author invokes a lot of Western (like, cowboy-western) imagery with references to the Alamo, Lone Ranger, and other shibboleths in a pretty naked attempt to go painting the folks as searching for lost masculinity. Finally, in a cheap shot, she then basically calls them cowards for not dying for their memes while still lamenting that their candidate (Trump) won.

It sure reads nicely, but it misses--in my opinion--a big part of the context these actions are taking place in.

These folks are reacting to a world where truth is really just another convenience to use or alter as a selling point, where systemic issues with politics and corruption are ignored beyond being used to build peoples' careers as progressives, where racism is suddenly de jure no longer an issue but de facto pretty obviously used to prevent critical speech, and where sexism and misogyny have been so widely and indiscriminately accused that they no longer have real and common meaning.

So, in the deepest throes of nihilism (which the author should've explored further instead of deciding to play the "mean young white male" card) this culture has evolved.

It's too bad that the author conflates /pol/ (known to many other 4chan users as a "containment board" for the most racist users) with the entirety of the site.

While pol may be the most active board on 4chan for the time being, it hasn't always been and may not always continue to be (sadly, painting the entire site as a club for nihilistic Trump supporters makes it less likely to attract different users). Much of the rest of the website offers a great discussion format for focused topics, and I wish I could admit to enjoying the other sections of 4chan without needing to qualify my statements by explaining that the entire site isn't dedicated to racism and porn.

I've met a handful of people via 4chan. All of them have been kind, intelligent, and thoughtful people. And a lot of fun. I'd much rather hang out with a random 4channer than someone from the US population at large, assuming both are around my age.

I think the really nasty ones avoid meeting irl though.

There is so much promise here. Unfortunately, the author is horribly undermined by her own ignorance, and also, somewhat ironically, by trying to attribute larger aspects of internet culture to a specific group of racists, misogynists, and Trump supporters.

Missing the point: the essay.

Happy Christmas Mr Sock.

I see what you're saying but am still not sure the traits you've described are separable from the psychology of men and women. I think the author would have been more balanced had she compared and contrasted 4chan with its opposite, tumblr.

There might be men on tumblr and women on 4chan but it always struck me that tumblr was somehow psychologically female and 4chan was intrinsically male. If you did a genomic survey of their users you would surely find the allele frequency was very different.

4chan can be pathologically cruel while tumblr exhibits every impulse a Victorian doctor would associate with hysteria. It's also interesting how 4chan is self aware they are 'raiding' (for the greater lulz), which I think is the instinct of hunter related genes, while tumblr is ground zero for spreading information about 'Outrage of the Week' and does not consider its participants as part of a mob action even while urging 'somebody do something'. These are very gendered characteristics.

Men and women respond to 'being thrown out by the tribe' differently. To be thrown under the bus is a bigger deal for a woman than a man. That is why tumblr's infamous SJW culture is so often purging their ranks of people who don't totally conform.

On the other side 4chan's raiding parties do indeed target outgroups from their tribe. It is not weird that alt-right has a 'spiritual' connection to 4chan. I don't like the term 'hate group' because it has lost meaningfulness but if they are then it is a broad church where the real requirement that validates you as a member is the extent of how much you dislike the outgroup. In fact you could be a member of the outgroup as long as you despise them enough!

I don't think 4chan or tumblr are evil or good. I think they are simply our human nature. The words are strongly overloaded because of the last western war but I also believe 4chan/tumblr are the embryonic form of the mass psychology that generated the political ideologies of communism and fascism. These are intrinsic parts of our makeup and we cannot really escape them. I treat them as collective survival instincts. Present society is concerned with the elimination of one or both, which is like trying to lift your feet from off the ground with your hands. If we genuinely want a positive future, we ought to be thinking about harnessing these instincts, not obliterating them. Right person, right place.