Weaponizing white thymos: flows of rage in the online audiences of the alt-right

Abstract

The alt-right is a growing radical right-wing network that is particularly effective at mobilizing emotion through digital communications. Introducing 'white thymos' as a framework to theorize the role of rage, anger, and indignation in alt-right communications, this study argues that emotive communication connects alt-right users and mobilizes white thymos to the benefit of populist radical right politics. By combining linguistic, computational, and interpretive techniques on data collected from Twitter, this study demonstrates that the alt-right weaponizes white thymos in three ways: visual documentation of white victimization, processes of legitimization of racialized pride, and reinforcement of the rectitude of rage and indignation. The weaponization of white thymos is then shown to be central to the culture of the alt-right and its connectivity with populist radical right politics. KEYWORDS Alt-right; populist radical right; white nationalism; social media; affect; Twitter The recent increase of research into the alt-right has uncovered much of the structure and ideology of this movement. However, how the alt-right captures the attention of its audiences and the forms of affect and emotion that it mobilizes are aspects of this movement that are not well understood. While the 'alt-right is unlike any racist movement we have ever seen. It is atomized, amorphous, predominantly online, and mostly anonymous' (Hawley 2017, p. 3), it is a product of decades of white supremacist organizing in the United States and far right ideology and narratives in Europe and North America. Moreover, the term alt-right is challenging to define, but it can be understood as an umbrella term for a set of radical right social movements active primarily (but not exclusively) in Anglophone countries. It has come to be understood in the literature as a contingent coalition of activists, usually networked online, that span online troll cultures, misogynists in the manosphere, neofascists, ultranationalists, identitarians, and white

Bridging White Supremacist Discourse: An ethnography of the online world of the ‘Alt-Right’

“…The Alt-Right and the wider manosphere -which includes, MRAs (Men's Rights Activists), Pickup Artists (PUA's), and 'involuntary celibates' (incels), among others -imagine themselves as connected through shared experiences of white male victimisation (Blodgett & Salter, 2018;Coston & Kimmel, 2013;Ganesh, 2020;Kelly, 2017;Marwick & Lewis, 2017;Marwick & Caplan, 2018;May & Feldman, 2018;Nagle, 2017;Phillips & Yi, 2018;Reitman, 2018). For these movements, this self-perception is premised on the construction of a 'referent object' to borrow a term from International Relations scholars, Barry Buzan, Ole Weaver and Jaap de Wilde (1998, p.…”

“…/pol/'s annual Halloween salt-mining expedition, dubbed 'Operation IOTBW' by holiday celebrants, serves as a useful reminder of how the Alt-Right weaponises the provocative, antagonistic humour endemic to trolling for its own strategic ends (Blodgett & Salter, 2018;Ganesh, 2020;Green, 2019;Greene, 2019;Hartzell, 2018;Hawley, 2017;Hawley, 2019;Heikkilä, 2017;Kelly, 2017;Nagle, 2016Nagle, , 2017Neiwert, 2017). While the phrase itself dates back to some fairly 'old' white supremacist sentiment (see below), this specific ritual started in late-October 2017, when an anonymous /pol/ user posted to a thread entitled "DISTURBING POSTERS POP UP AROUND BOSTON COLLEGE".…”

Bridging White Supremacist Discourse: An ethnography of the online world of the ‘Alt-Right’

“…In response to this statement, one /pol/ user writes: "This is exactly the type of reaction i [sic] was hoping for, hopefully people will realise their bullshit." celebrants, serves as a useful reminder of how the Alt-Right weaponises the provocative, antagonistic humour endemic to trolling for its own strategic ends (Blodgett & Salter, 2018;Ganesh, 2020;Green, 2019;Greene, 2019;Hartzell, 2018;Hawley, 2017;Hawley, 2019;Heikkilä, 2017;Kelly, 2017;Nagle, 2016Nagle, , 2017Neiwert, 2017). While the phrase itself dates back to some fairly 'old' white supremacist sentiment (see below), this specific ritual started in late-October 2017,…”

“…As Hartzell (2018) argues, the ostensible erosion of white society is constructed as materially evident in the increased prevalence of racial mixing, immigration and the promotion of a more racially and ethnically diverse population. For adherents to the 'great replacement' conspiracy theory, 29 rising immigration and race-mixing constitute a form of 'white genocide' to the extent that they contribute to the perceived decline of the more ethnically 'pure' white population (Ebner, 2020b;Ganesh, 2020;Hartzell, 2018). As such, users discussing this red pill often do so with a sense of existential urgency.…”

“…As alluded to above, even the phrase, 'It's Okay to be White', is reminiscent of some of the core characteristics of red pills, drawing explicitly on rhetors of white male victimisation and elucidating a perceived erosion of Western white identity (Ganesh, 2020). In threads about the IOTBW campaign, this rhetoric is most often incited when users refer to a crippling sense of 'white guilt' that has demoralised the white nation.…”