The Internet Hate Machine: On the Weird Collectivity of Anonymous Far-Right Groups
Hagen, Sal and Marc Tuters. 2020. "The Internet Hate Machine: On the Weird Collectivity of Anonymous Far-Right Groups." In Rise of the Far Right: Technologies of Recruitment and Mobilization, edited by Melody Devries, Judith Bessant and Robb Watts. Lanham: Rowman Littlefield: 171-192.
21 Pages Posted: 13 Mar 2023
Date Written: June 1, 2021
Abstract
With the resurgence of the far-right globally, there have been increasing questions on how anonymous online spaces like forums and imageboards work as zones for extremist recruitment and mobilisation. In the absence of persistent markers of individuals identities, recruitment here cannot be understood as arising through person-to-person contact. Emblematic of an anonymous online space which has successfully energised extremists without appealing to personal ties is 4chan, in particular its politics board, /pol/. In media coverage, /pol/ has been framed as a central hub for far-right activity, as a neo-Nazi recruitment zone, as a source of ideological inspiration for violent extremists, and as a significant force in the election of Donald Trump. However, while all of these claims are correct to some degree, they nevertheless fail to recognise the complex and nuanced group-making dynamics of 4chan’s anonymous collectives. To explore this, we first discuss the sociological debates about group formation broadly and outline the concept of entitativity, a psychological term referring to the degree to which a social group is seen as a singular whole. In reference to this, the chapter then moves to an empirical exploration of how journalistic accounts have framed 4chan to show how the imageboard as a whole became associated with the far-right and /pol/. Conversely, the third section focuses on how 4chan/pol/ users imagine themselves in dialogue with these very media representations. We describe how self-referential discussions on 4chan/pol/ about journalistic accounts of 4chan serve a constitutive role in their own “weird collectivity”. We specifically analyse three comment threads from 2017, which we argue articulate four key aspects that underpin the role of entitativity in 4chan/pol/: a homogenisation of and hostility towards the outgroup, a strategic rhetoric of ingroup diversity, expressions of ingroup togetherness, and self-mythologisation. In doing so, we consider how these and other group-making processes complicate the narratives of 4chan as a forum for far-right recruitment.
Keywords: 4chan, /pol/, entitativity, weird collectivity, far-right, alt-right, online extremism
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