Culture Warlords: My Journey into the Dark Web of White Supremacy

Abstract

Number of Pages: 288 pp. ISBN-13: 9780306846434 With Culture Warlords (2020), Lavin ventures down the rabbit hole of hatred, misogyny and bigotry to re-emerge with knowledge you never knew you did not want to know. Lavin, a prolific freelance writer based in New York, begins with what seems to be individual antifascist sabotage of right-wing online communities, and proceeds to encompass a collective and common project. Her work builds to reveal law enforcement's complicity with fascist organising and condemns major technology companies such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, Telegram, and YouTube, which profit from underground international domestic terrorist networking. She clarifies the loose movement, known as Antifa, and aims to mobilise others to subvert fascist organising. She speaks to radicals, liberals and moderates alike-anyone who might defend hate speech on the basis of free speech, thus becoming complicit in the legacy of violence enacted in the name of the so-called pure, white race. Although focusing on white supremacy, she shows how misogyny intimately connects with ideologies promoting white supremacist violence. Lavin works in the company of her feminist predecessors, radical activist scholars who articulated the intertwined relationship between racism and misogyny (Combahee River Collective, 1979; Crenshaw, 1991; Davis, 1983; Lorde, 1984). These scholars theorised what bell hooks (2013) later names Imperialist White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy: a matrix of intersecting, interdependent ideologies maintained to perpetuate social, political and economic global subjugation of the masses. Rather than illuminating the simultaneity of oppressive structures that target women and people of colour as her predecessors have, Lavin asks if the relationship could be causal, if misogyny can act as gateway to white supremacy or vice versa (p.112). To enact her subterfuge, Lavin adopts multiple white identities in order to gain entry into the online underworld of white supremacists and antifeminists. To the uninitiated she reveals the tactics, lingo and psychology of a virtual universe where white supremacist misogynists thrive via platforms named Telegram, 8chan and WhiteDate. Notably, she virtually becomes 'AryanQueen:' a blonde (of course) neo-Nazi single looking for love with likeminded bigots. She exposes the pathos of those who are known as 'incels,' or involuntary celibates, i.e., men who lack experience with physical intimacy and through this lack of connection become bitter, spiteful, self-loathing misogynists. Like an Antifa siren off the shores of MAGA, she lures unsuspecting incels so that they might be forced to face in their public life-who they really are. Rather than avoiding the stereotypes of the evil seductress, the succubus, the author links seduction and war, and relishes her deceit, happily playing the role of Jezebel. Like those before her (Chisholm, 1970; Davis, 1983), Lavin illustrates the connection between white supremacy and antifeminism through analysis of the logic of control-both...

Temporalization and the Digital Vigilante: Past Presencing, Un/Doing Futures and “Jewish Revenge” as Affective Justice in Talia Lavin’s Culture Warlords

“…The reader is told, moreover, that Der Stürmer deleted all of his social-media pages -vectors for his continued presence, activities, and also vulnerability online -and was expelled from the chat room through which the two had met. While it is the swiftness of the pursuit of justice that commonly appeals to the figure of the digital vigilante, the lasting impacts of their actions can hence be a reward, but they can also be a source of threat: and so, for example, Lavin (2020) too is forced to take down her profile on account of the death threats she received following the Bellingcat publication: "'Just tell me your name,'" one man is reported to have written her in Russian, "'Your house. Your address.…”

“…Feeling "at a generation's remove," as will become increasingly clear, is hence based on lived and inherited experience, to be sure, but also on the multiply indirect and conjured affect of stories and nightmares. Lavin (2020) herself writes that she never heard the story of her grandparents' survival from them directly: "What I heard were suggestive snatches of what had already become family legend" (p. 14).…”

Right-Wing Extremism in Mainstream Games: A Review of the Literature

“…While he notes some fluidity and overlaps amongst these groups and their goals, they all "[seek] to restore a (perceived) past 'golden age'" (p. 4). As such, these groups often operate independently of one another and with their own variations of common white supremacist ideologies (Anti-Defamation League, 2018;Lavin, 2020), but with the shared agenda of a continued regime of white-only authority that positions minority populations as the other and a threat rather than equal citizens. We focus on these groups due to the fact that the overwhelming majority of extremist terror committed in the United States is fueled by right-wing extremism.…”

The Symbolic Boundary Work of Incels: Subcultural Negotiation of Meaning and Identity Online

“…In addition, cultural criminology is used to explore the mediated flow and "interplay of oppositional subcultural identity and legal authority" (Ferrell 2013: 261). It examines the subcultural meaning and interaction with mainstream media, government, and online actors, who position incels within the frames of crime control or domestic terrorism -the threat of incels demands social and political measures (Bates 2020;Lavin 2020;Leidig 2021). At the same time, incels construct their own subcultural meanings as they embrace otherness and deviance.…”

“…Self-proclaimed incels occupy the "incelosphere" of isolated men blaming their involuntary lack of sexual and romantic success on feminism and women (Jaki et al 2019;Lowles 2019). Their online subculture propagating misogynistic and extremist ideology has been criticized for fostering male supremacy and racism, violence and a culture of martyrdom, and even domestic terrorism (Larkin 2018;Lavin 2020;Witt 2020). However, few incels actually commit violent acts, and incel-inspired terrorism is rare (Hoffman, Ware, and Shapiro 2020).…”