Journal ︎

Ever since making a website on neocities, a part of me has been struck with finding the worst of the worst: those who consider themselves "blackpilled", incels, femcels, the works. I always considered it to be that old adage, "opposites attract" but more in an intellectual way. What drives these people outside of hatred, for themselves and for others? Unfortunately, the further I dig, the more I read their manifestos against race mixing, transgender panics and their belief gay people are "degenerate", I come up again and again with nothing, which I suppose is my answer. Their hate is illogical.

However, despite understanding that notion: hate as an emotional concept that drives them, I still wonder, how did they become this way, when I didn't, despite also feeling socially isolated for a period of my life? A dear friend told me they believe it's due to these people never outgrowing the "ironic bigotry humor" of being a middle schooler. I'd like to believe most people do, though considering where I grew up, I know this is false. Most don't outgrow it, but a social support system of friends and family usually prevents people from going down the dark path that is online white nationalism.

I wonder sometimes why I myself had avoided that, but social isolation is merely one factor that creates these circles. One must consider the politics held beforehand. Were these people "apolitical", a thought that, despite its name, is inherently political, as neutrality only ever aids the oppressor and not the oppressed. With that, they were always conservative-leaning. Maybe their family was, maybe they grew disillusioned with the failings of capitalism and neoliberalism, something I myself became disillusioned with at 16. I theorize that, rather than questioning everything as I had done, including McCarthy-era red scare lies, these people instead chose William F Buckley, Stephan Bandera, Theodore Kazynski and other far-right-but-not-quite-nazis, simply because the anti-communism and hatred of non-white people was just so ingrained in their minds. Coupled with isolation, of course they seek out others like them.

There comes a point when these thoughts develop into something far deeper that leeches at the psyche, the hatred of other people turns into the desire to invent new concepts to despise ("Neo-Obscurantism" anyone?) and "warn" others about. This isolation begins to eat at the mind of the one isolated. Think of it like a dog straining against a leash tied to a fence post or a tree. The dog is reinforcing the negative emotion by straining, barking and snarling at anyone that comes by in an attempt to help. People who succumb to reactionary ideology through isolation are simply reinforcing their bad habits, thoughts, beliefs, simply because they've deluded themselves into believing there is no chance of, or desire to, change.