Current Events > How 4Chan Took Over the Republican Party with Elle Reeve and Adam Conover.

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cpwJ7o0o6c

A look at how Internet trolls corrupted the Republican party to the fascist cesspool it is now.

Most people probably not watching an hour and twenty minute YT vid.

No idea who these fiveheads are

teh republicans where like this before the internet existed

they just where hiding it back then

all that modern republicans do is not bother with the mask

stop trying to redeem the republicans of the past

teh republicans where like this before the internet existed

they just where hiding it back then

all that modern republicans do is not bother with the mask

stop trying to redeem the republicans of the past

Maybe but I want to point out something really important here. The younger generations can't afford to go out fishing or to the beach. The "normal people" you're talking about have the income to have grounded, real hobbies and social structures. If we don't address income inequality, and the fact that the only thing all the young people can afford to do is be online, we're in for a really sudden, really gross cultural shift.

Literally there is zero extra money to do anything but work and cover necessities. It's important you understand, yes, there are many people who do not have extra income for anything social.

And sure...there were plenty of racists in the past but I feel that...the fact that pepole have little to do but look at the internet may be what's accelerated this transformation.

This is the same dip shit who lost an argument to Joe Rogan

regean let a deadly virus spread because he thought it only klled gay people

I watched all of it.

I liked the final story quite a bit. Very interesting considering being in or out of a community.

Did they mention/start with GamerGate?

ZMythos posted...

Did they mention/start with GamerGate?

It is a big section. Around halfway to two thirds in.

I think they may have gotten it backwards.

4chan is terrible.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


Gamergate idiots love the GOP.

I find Adam Conover pretty annoying in personality, but I'm actually curious about this one.

4chan isn't that powerful lmao.
99% of the users there are just trolls and shit talking.

Id watch but I cant stand Adam Conover

An hour and 20 minutes? Fuck no.

There is nothing that requires an hour and 20 minutes that cannot be written down and read in a much more efficient manner.

I'm actually interested though. We do know that a lot of internet alt-right white supremacist types have drifted towards the Republicans, but I'd be curious as to when exactly we noticed a shift in the messaging and tactics of so-called mainstream Republicans. Up until Trump's nomination in 2016, it seems as if a lot of your rank-and-file Republicans still had some sanity and rejected overt white supremacy.

I think they may have gotten it backwards.

yeah, they have absolutely the wrong idea of how this works.

what happens is that once a forum is established where the rules about language and content are relaxed, nazi types will move in like an opportunistic disease and try to set up shop. it's what happened with FYAD, it's what happened with 4chan.

Vyrulisse posted...

4chan isn't that powerful lmao.
99% of the users there are just trolls and shit talking.

4chan is literally just a place where people go to be their worst selves.

mybbqrules posted...

4chan is literally just a place where people go to be their worst selves.

It highlights how people actually are.
There's good stuff to be found there but you gotta take the bad with it.

Vyrulisse posted...

There's good stuff to be found there

Lol, false.

Vyrulisse posted...

4chan isn't that powerful lmao.
99% of the users there are just trolls and shit talking.

We literally had a Tucker Carlson fascist writer on this website. It stands within reason that people like Elon Musk or Stephen Miller perused the site or worse ones that were offshoots.

I think the right and 4chan have effectively started feeding off each other, /v/ has nothing but right wing culture war bull shit in all of it's threads, /pol/ and /r9k/ definitely have influences there with /pol/ especially having become more insane as Kamala Harris continues to effectively wrap this election up in a bow

SSj4Wingzero posted...

An hour and 20 minutes? Fuck no.

There is nothing that requires an hour and 20 minutes that cannot be written down and read in a much more efficient manner.

I'm actually interested though. We do know that a lot of internet alt-right white supremacist types have drifted towards the Republicans, but I'd be curious as to when exactly we noticed a shift in the messaging and tactics of so-called mainstream Republicans. Up until Trump's nomination in 2016, it seems as if a lot of your rank-and-file Republicans still had some sanity and rejected overt white supremacy.

Can this be podcasted or are there too many important visuals?

Haven't watched it, but even if that's the case, you can write an article. It costs barely any money to write a piece on the internet and put the visuals on the internet (damn near anyone can use WordPress/SquareSpace/etc. and make a site).

And you can probably summarize something into a much shorter amount of time. Short of something ultra-technical like graduate-school level sciences (and even then, only ultra-abstract ones like physics/math), I don't believe that there's anything out that that *needs* an entire hour and 20 minute explanation to understand. The only reason people love these long-ass videos is probably about monetization and not about actual content.

SaikyoStyle posted...

Can this be podcasted or are there too many important visuals?

Probably is a podcast.

SSj4Wingzero posted...

Haven't watched it, but even if that's the case, you can write an article. And you can probably summarize something into a much shorter amount of time. The only reason people love these long-ass videos is probably about monetization and not about actual content.

I'm not sure Adam Conover does anything if he can't plaster his stupid face all over it.

Vyrulisse posted...

4chan isn't that powerful lmao.
99% of the users there are just trolls and shit talking.

Vyrulisse posted...

It highlights how people actually are.
There's good stuff to be found there but you gotta take the bad with it.

You're stuck in 2006.

post-/pol/ 4chan has very much poisoned modern online discourse.

Not many people left who do it "for the lulz" anymore. Many are 100% serious.

I don't believe that there's anything out that that *needs* an entire hour and 20 minute explanation to understand

I mean...any real explanation for a topic would need more then a hour to explain, anything else is just a version for kids.

It started back in 2008, that's when the republican party started welcoming just the most outrageous public bigots you could find, went into hyper drive once terms like PC, SJW hit main stream and then Gamergate happened sending the video game community, the anime and manga community and running towards the right and now we have terms like CRT, DEI and tons and tons of right wing influences who also stream anime,video games and manga because as painful as it is to say it, easily manipulable people enjoy those venues so being told that their hobby is being destroyed because of this or that

Just realized she was the Vice News Tonight reporter. She's quite good. Didn't realize she was 42. Always seemed mid 20's.

Poe's Law -loves- a post-ironic internet culture

once again people regean let a deadly disease spread because he thought it only effected gay people

this shit we have today is not new

I find the notion that 4chan got Trump elected to be cringe. Most Republicans and their voters are boomers who don't know what the internet is lol. I'll check it out though.

Necronmon posted...

I mean...any real explanation for a topic would need more then a hour to explain, anything else is just a version for kids.

4chan taking over a Republican party doesn't need an hour to explain. It might take an hour if you like going off on tangents, offering unnecessary background information, inserting random jokes and references, making connections to random bullshit, and not getting to the meat of the issue.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


I think we're more in the "oh, shit, you guys were actually serious?" phase of things than the actual swinging-right phase

just extremely unfortunately after an election cycle or two of voting For The Funny at the tail end of decades of groundwork by the right wing to install a theocracy. Bit of horrible timing, that.

SSj4Wingzero posted...

4chan taking over a Republican party doesn't need an hour to explain. It might take an hour if you like going off on tangents, offering unnecessary background information, inserting random jokes and references, making connections to random bullshit, and not getting to the meat of the issue.

Cool story, that doesn't make it "not true".

SSj4Wingzero posted...

4chan taking over a Republican party doesn't need an hour to explain. It might take an hour if you like going off on tangents, offering unnecessary background information, inserting random jokes and references, making connections to random bullshit, and not getting to the meat of the issue.

The linked video is literally a podcast. It isn't intended to be an article or anything. Though if you did want articles on the subject, the podcasts guest, Elle Reeve, has written a lot of them. But ranting about a Podcast being a podcast makes you look unhinged.

AceMos posted...

teh republicans where like this before the internet existed

they just where hiding it back then

all that modern republicans do is not bother with the mask

stop trying to redeem the republicans of the past

The Republican party has been vile for decades but how they project that vileness has absolutely shifted in the post-gamer gate era and is worth being looked at. They aren't trying to redeem anything. Please try to adopt some standard of media literacy.

Its insane the tens of millions of Republican morons got duped by neck beard, basement dwelling losers on 4chan

AceMos posted...

teh republicans where like this before the internet existed

they just where hiding it back then

all that modern republicans do is not bother with the mask

stop trying to redeem the republicans of the past

They weren't even hiding it. George Carlin's last election he ever voted in was when Nixon won. He had a lot of choice words about how people were so stupid for not seeing filth for what it was. You can go a little bit further and find people calling Reagan a fascist before he was elected. None of that has changed. Trump changed what was socially acceptable to the party. He did not change the party.

this video is a bit too long and drawn out for me to make the time to watch it, so I don't know if they mentioned this, but it's also sort of a reciprocal thing. 4chan has not just sorta radicalized the real life public side of politics but it has also sorta gotten itself even more radicalized in return, over the past handful of years

I'm not gonna act like it was always some squeaky clean place but a lot of the stuff it gets its bad reputation from used to be more confined to a few specific boards. 4chan actually has a ton of random special interest boards that I feel like most people barely even know about. and then within those specific interest boards you'd get general threads that were even more niche. In all honesty, even to this day it's probably the best (or maybe even only) public online discussion space for some of these niche topics. but all the political stuff and racism and whatnot just sort of leaked everywhere and it's a lot harder to use it because you basically have to be ok with a place that is 80% useful valid interesting discussion and 30% extremely casual racism

4chan might be too narrow a culprit; it's a party built on pornbrain

Tyranthraxus posted...

They weren't even hiding it. George Carlin's last election he ever voted in was when Nixon won. He had a lot of choice words about how people were so stupid for not seeing filth for what it was. You can go a little bit further and find people calling Reagan a fascist before he was elected. None of that has changed. Trump changed what was socially acceptable to the party. He did not change the party.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MXezjbuzh14

While the Republican Party's goals and aspirations may not have changed much, l definitely think how the current GOP carries itself was in some way influenced by 4chan or really just online edgelords in general.

Prior to Trump, Republicans at least had the thin veneer of professionalism and tact (for the most part). It's an image the old guard pubs like Mitch have spent carefully cultivating because it made it easier for them to push through their agenda without creating too much ruckus.

But the whole time there was a bunch of chronically online men who grew up with online forums and Xbox Live lobbies where you can anonymously troll, bully and harass people and say basically whatever awful shit you wanted to say without any real world consequences. So when Trump came along and became a viable political candidate off of nothing but bullying and bigotry, and especially after Obama made them realize the Presidency wasn't reserved for just white men, they latched onto him.

And ever since, the GOP has desperately been trying to capture that same energy with younger candidates. I've always felt that if the old GOP was "preserve harmful institutions, manipulate the system to work for you" lawful/neutral evil, then Trump's GOP is full blown "burn everything down, including ourselves" chaotic evil.

Why is it that people who frequent 4Chan be like "It's not as bad as everyone makes it out to be, there's only a teeny-tiny amount of weird users who do bad/questionable stuff over there. It's mostly harmless messing around"? Anyone with a brain can see that that's just objectively not true and 4Chan's earned its shit reputation for many, many reasons.

Kitt posted...

Why is it that people who frequent 4Chan be like "It's not as bad as everyone makes it out to be, there's only a teeny-tiny amount of weird users who do bad/questionable stuff over there. It's mostly harmless messing around"? Anyone with a brain can see that that's just objectively not true and 4Chan's earned its shit reputation for many, many reasons.

Because when 4chan first came into existence, that's what it was. It got radicalized over time. The problem is that the moderation was terrible and people started to believe what they read and actual bad entities used it to spread their influence.

What happened there would be what any forum that doesn't mod people like it should would have happen .