That was a really engaging read. Thanks for posting. I encourage everyone to read the whole thing, but here are a few excerpts that jumped out at me: And then the guys stabs his dad while calling...
That was a really engaging read. Thanks for posting. I encourage everyone to read the whole thing, but here are a few excerpts that jumped out at me:
Like so many others, he had joined the late-Obama-era culture wars through Gamergate, the often radical online campaign that claimed to be concerned with ethics in gaming journalism.
In his late teens and early twenties, Lane told people, he dabbled in Islam, in Marxism, in street gangs, in party drugs, in Occupy, in clothing design. He even went through a phase of supporting al-Qaeda, multiple friends say. None of it stuck.
Throughout 2016, Lane wrote dozens of stories for the Ralph Retort: about “#BLM Goons,” about assassins sent to silence Julian Assange, about Hillary Clinton’s failing health. He worked for long stretches, 24 hours, 36 hours at a time, peppering the Ralph Retort Slack with messages the whole while. And the more content he posted, the angrier he became about SJWs.
“He saw progressives as completely evil,” Ralph said. “He thought there might be a civil war and we might have to kill these people. He would get pretty gung ho about it.”
In September 2015, Lane put out a video titled “Progress: Pedophilia” with the caption “The shocking truth about the left's academic and political ties with pedophilia advocacy.” It starts with a Yiannopoulos article about an obscure Gamergate critic who claimed in a 2005 private chat to be a pedophile, then goes on to make a claim that promoting pedophilia was a “hidden tenet” of the progressive movement. Lane hadn’t posted previously about pedophilia, but the video got more than 8,000 views, 10 times what his uploads typically received, and the comments section quickly filled up with appreciative voices asking Lane for more.
And then the guys stabs his dad while calling him a leftist pedophile. WTF. I wonder if any of the hate and paranoia mongers online feel any real culpability about these kinds of things.
It's like looking in the mirror at my teenage self. I remember when GamerGate sprung up and engulfed /v/, then spread to other boards and eventually reddit. I fell for it, hook, line and sinker,...
Like so many others, he had joined the late-Obama-era culture wars through Gamergate, the often radical online campaign that claimed to be concerned with ethics in gaming journalism.
It's like looking in the mirror at my teenage self. I remember when GamerGate sprung up and engulfed /v/, then spread to other boards and eventually reddit. I fell for it, hook, line and sinker, and helped participate in the targeted harassment against anyone named as an enemy of gaming. I also ate up the propaganda that was pushed in the midst of the chaos - not just the sexism inherent the original lies that started the shitstorm, but also the racists, the anti-Semites, and others who realized what excellent recruiting grounds the situation had created. When you're hating on "unethical games journalists" which is really just a dog whistle for diversity in gaming, it's easy to think that extreme bigots are on your side and you should "hear them out."
Through my absorption of hateful propaganda, I had definitely started developing some bigoted positions. But I convinced myself that I wasn't a bad person, I was being a "realist"; I wasn't a racist, I just wanted a white society; I wasn't sexist, I was just anti-SJW, etc. Looking back on it, it was some serious mental gymnastics to accomplish that doublethink, but it was at least in part because I didn't want my hateful views to be exposed to my parents, teachers, and peers.
GamerGate sprung up during (I think) my junior year of high school. The following summer, I spent a lot of time on reddit, and in the process stumbled across subs with alternate viewpoints (or rather, rational, non-hateful views). At first I mocked them with my friends who were also GamerGaters, but their ideas and their stories of injustices they had experienced grew on me. And pretty soon, my entire worldview was collapsing in front of me, and I realized just how deep I had gone. I hurt myself a lot and nearly took my own life because I was so ashamed of what I had done. In hindsight that was an over reaction, but as an emotionally unstable teenager it seemed like the only way out.
Occasionally, I log onto my old reddit account and look at what I had upvoted and posted, and it's a painful reminder of what I once was. Had I been born a few years later, I likely would be posting pictures of pepe and Kekistan on r/the_donald. I can see a bit of myself in him, and there but for the grace of God, go I.
Thanks for posting your story. I honestly thought it was kind of bizarre to see someone in the article specifically try to downplay the "online radicalization" angle: I think this was clearly a...
Thanks for posting your story. I honestly thought it was kind of bizarre to see someone in the article specifically try to downplay the "online radicalization" angle:
The source in the public defender’s office warned me that to link Chuck Davis’s killing too closely to online radicalization would be a mistake. This was a case, this person told me, about family dynamics and undiagnosed mental illness — no more, no less.
I think this was clearly a case where someone (who yes, probably had some mental issues as well) was pushed into a dangerous state largely because of the places and people they spent their life with online. We're causing a ton of issues by continuing to act like the internet is some kind of place separate from "real life" where nothing matters and nobody should take anything seriously.
Thanks for responding with your experience. If I was a similar age I wonder if I would have gotten drawn into the same thing. I remember believing all kinds of wacky stuff when I was younger. I...
Thanks for responding with your experience. If I was a similar age I wonder if I would have gotten drawn into the same thing. I remember believing all kinds of wacky stuff when I was younger.
I was thinking someone with a story like yours should do high school assembly talks on avoiding this kind of stuff.
This was an excellent read. Had me hooked from start to finish. Really goes to show you how dangerous these mindsets that are being curated online can really be. I worry about the GreatAwakening...
This was an excellent read. Had me hooked from start to finish. Really goes to show you how dangerous these mindsets that are being curated online can really be. I worry about the GreatAwakening sub on Reddit, as I feel like that will be the next hive of madness to produce a person like this
Tom’s narrative has no need of facts. They are beside the point. Like other ideas that aspire to ‘total explanation’, the narrative pretends ‘to know beforehand everything that experience may still have in store’. Armed with omniscient knowledge of the ‘true’ cause for all events, believers are relieved of their sense of insecurity.
I figured his account would be scrubbed for some reason, but it's not.
https://www.reddit.com/user/seattle4truth
That was a really engaging read. Thanks for posting. I encourage everyone to read the whole thing, but here are a few excerpts that jumped out at me:
And then the guys stabs his dad while calling him a leftist pedophile. WTF. I wonder if any of the hate and paranoia mongers online feel any real culpability about these kinds of things.
It's like looking in the mirror at my teenage self. I remember when GamerGate sprung up and engulfed /v/, then spread to other boards and eventually reddit. I fell for it, hook, line and sinker, and helped participate in the targeted harassment against anyone named as an enemy of gaming. I also ate up the propaganda that was pushed in the midst of the chaos - not just the sexism inherent the original lies that started the shitstorm, but also the racists, the anti-Semites, and others who realized what excellent recruiting grounds the situation had created. When you're hating on "unethical games journalists" which is really just a dog whistle for diversity in gaming, it's easy to think that extreme bigots are on your side and you should "hear them out."
Through my absorption of hateful propaganda, I had definitely started developing some bigoted positions. But I convinced myself that I wasn't a bad person, I was being a "realist"; I wasn't a racist, I just wanted a white society; I wasn't sexist, I was just anti-SJW, etc. Looking back on it, it was some serious mental gymnastics to accomplish that doublethink, but it was at least in part because I didn't want my hateful views to be exposed to my parents, teachers, and peers.
GamerGate sprung up during (I think) my junior year of high school. The following summer, I spent a lot of time on reddit, and in the process stumbled across subs with alternate viewpoints (or rather, rational, non-hateful views). At first I mocked them with my friends who were also GamerGaters, but their ideas and their stories of injustices they had experienced grew on me. And pretty soon, my entire worldview was collapsing in front of me, and I realized just how deep I had gone. I hurt myself a lot and nearly took my own life because I was so ashamed of what I had done. In hindsight that was an over reaction, but as an emotionally unstable teenager it seemed like the only way out.
Occasionally, I log onto my old reddit account and look at what I had upvoted and posted, and it's a painful reminder of what I once was. Had I been born a few years later, I likely would be posting pictures of pepe and Kekistan on r/the_donald. I can see a bit of myself in him, and there but for the grace of God, go I.
Edit: Grammar.
Thanks for posting your story. I honestly thought it was kind of bizarre to see someone in the article specifically try to downplay the "online radicalization" angle:
I think this was clearly a case where someone (who yes, probably had some mental issues as well) was pushed into a dangerous state largely because of the places and people they spent their life with online. We're causing a ton of issues by continuing to act like the internet is some kind of place separate from "real life" where nothing matters and nobody should take anything seriously.
Thanks for responding with your experience. If I was a similar age I wonder if I would have gotten drawn into the same thing. I remember believing all kinds of wacky stuff when I was younger.
I was thinking someone with a story like yours should do high school assembly talks on avoiding this kind of stuff.
Amazing story. Please consider writing much more about it, like a in depth blog post.
This was an excellent read. Had me hooked from start to finish. Really goes to show you how dangerous these mindsets that are being curated online can really be. I worry about the GreatAwakening sub on Reddit, as I feel like that will be the next hive of madness to produce a person like this
See also.
Holy shit that article was so fucking good