From Memes to Infowars: How 75 Fascist Activists Were “Red-Pilled”. bellingcat.com/news/americas/…
The vast majority of domestic terror attacks in the U.S. are carried out by white supremacist organizations. Atomwaffen, a neo-Nazi death squad with five killings to their name, is probably the deadliest fascist group to have arisen since 2016. /1
One member of Atomwaffen, Vasillios Pistolis, was an active duty U.S. marine when he marched at the first Unite the Right rally. Pistolis also posted regularly on a series of fascist and white supremacist Discord servers, prior to and after joining Atomwaffen. /2
The media collective Unicorn Riot has archived hundreds of thousands of posts from these Discord servers. Their database includes dozens of conversations where fascists discuss how they were converted to their extremist beliefs. /3 discordleaks.unicornriot.ninja/discord/user/1…
Bellingcat collected “red-pilling” stories from seventy-five fascist activists. The analysis is below, details on the activists we studied can be found here. /4 docs.google.com/document/d/1kp…
What is red-pilling? An online community develops its own lingo over time. Among fascist activists “red-pilling” means converting someone to fascist, racist and anti-Semitic beliefs. /5
The term originates with “The Matrix,” a popular 1999 film. The protagonist is offered the choice between a red pill, which will open his eyes to the reality of a machine-dominated world, and a blue pill, which will return him to ignorance and safety. /6
The definition of “red pill,” as used by fascists, is rather elastic. Films and songs are described as “red pilled” if they reinforce a far-right worldview. At least one poster referred to amphetamines as red-pilled. /7
There appears to be no agreed-upon standard for when a human being is red-pilled. Most fascist activists agree that acknowledgement of the Jewish Question, or JQ, is critical. This means believing that Jewish people are at the center of a vast global conspiracy. /8
The end goal of this conspiracy is usually described as “white genocide”, but there are numerous variations. /9 
Red pilling is described as a gradual process. Individual people can be red-pilled on certain issues and not others. /10
Stefan Molyneux, a popular author and far-right YouTube personality, is seen as being red-pilled on race and “the future of the west” even though he is not considered as a fascist. /11
Prominent YouTuber PewPewDie is also often considered red-pilled. It is accepted that media personalities need to hide their outright fascist beliefs, or “power level”, in order to have a chance at red-pilling the general population (usually called “normies”). /12
How to red-pill others is a constant topic of conversation. In this thread one user talks about how he “skirted the jew question” in order to red-pill a co-worker. Instead, he claims to have exploited his co-worker’s hatred of “SJW”s. /13 discordleaks.unicornriot.ninja/discord/view/3…
Other users advise starting the red-pilling process with the JQ. Disagreements mainly center around which techniques are most effective. The overall goal is quite clear. /14
The “normie” to fascist pipeline: Pres Donald Trump is seen as having red-pilled many Americans. A number of fascist activists credit his candidacy as the start of their awakening. This conversation between users Buddy Hobbs & ecce_lux is a useful breakdown of how that looks. /15
“The great meme war” is a reference to time this user spent on 4chan and possibly 8chan, creating far-right memes in order to red-pill other people during the election. /16
The whole exchange paints a picture of a man who was initially ensnared by candidate Trump’s rhetoric and then driven towards far-right media and, eventually, extremist communities on 4chan. There his commitment to fascist ideology crystalized. /17
The vast majority of fascist activists are male. Some of these men even doubt that women can be red-pilled. The few users who identify themselves as female tend to be quite extreme in their beliefs. /18
This is consistent with research into the demographics of the far-right done by the Institute for Family Studies. Fascist and white nationalist organizations are “overwhelmingly male,” yet women are more likely to identify with such beliefs. /19 ifstudies.org/blog/the-demog…
The American fascist movement has been male-dominated since at least the aftermath of the Vietnam war. The role of veterans in founding many early far-right organizations may be one explanation as to why. /20 theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
It is also likely that the demographics of certain online communities plays a role. 70% of 4chan users are male, and 4chan is the second most frequently credited website in red-pilling stories. /21 4chan.org/advertise
39 of 75 fascist activists we studied credit the Internet with their red-pilling. YouTube seems to be the single most frequently discussed website. The specific videos credited, however, span a multitude of creators, from UK YouTuber Sargon of Akkad to Infowars Alex Jones. /22
Many fascist activists cite a multitude of red-pills which were all integral to them arriving at their current beliefs. User barD’s 18 March, 2017 post is a great example of this. Here’s how he traces his journey. /23:
From there his evolution continues. /24:
We see a steady spiral, from arguments in comment sections to far-right YouTube personalities to “the_donald” subreddit to 4chan’s /pol/ board and eventually to fascist Discord servers. /25
This user singles out Sargon of Akkad (British Youtuber Carl Benjamin) for special praise and considers him a major influence. One of Sargon’s most popular video series’ is, “Why Do Men Hate #Feminism?” (Episode #1 is titled “Feminists Hate Women.”) /26
In later posts barD claims the “gradual red-pilling” of Sargon’s videos stopped him from being a feminist. He also praises Sargon as an “easier step” away from liberal views than outright Nazism. /27 discordleaks.unicornriot.ninja/discord/view/2…
Once he’d taken that step and gotten used to Sargon’s rhetoric, it was easier for him to get used to the more extreme atmosphere of /pol/. /28 discordleaks.unicornriot.ninja/discord/view/2…
It’s not uncommon for white supremacist, fascist and anti-Semitic beliefs to arise initially as the result of humor. Four of the seventy-five activists we studied mentioned ironic memes as major red-pills. /29
In this thread(discordleaks.unicornriot.ninja/discord/view/7…), a user recalls how his first red-pill came during an argument over an anti-Semitic tweet posted to Facebook. /30
Another user asks FucknOathMate if he was “only doing it ironically at first,” and he replies: “Well sort of.” He says he knew Jewish people were “weird” and “ran everything,” but he wasn’t yet a Holocaust denier or a fascist. /31
Again, we see someone sliding gradually into extremist beliefs. Ironic memes gave this individual a chance to get used to the temperature before diving in. /32
Thirty-six fascist activists traced the start of their red-pilling process to an event that occurred offline. Five of these people credited their families with red-pilling them. For the other thirty-one, methods ran a rather wide gamut. /33
Four fascists say they were red-pilled while tripping on LSD. User Europa is a typical example of this trend. He claims his interest in Nazism started in childhood, with his dad watching Hitler documentaries “every day.” /34 discordleaks.unicornriot.ninja/discord/view/8…
Europa carried this interest into adulthood, watching Hitler documentaries and speeches while taking LSD. This convinced him to start “researching” Nazism which, eventually, inspired him to become an activist *cough Nazi cough*. /35
Other activists cite living in a diverse area, reading a copy of Mein Kampf, mass-shooter Anders Brevik’s manifesto and numerous other factors as their first red-pills. /36 discordleaks.unicornriot.ninja/discord/view/5…
Since our study of these activists is based on messages they exchanged with each other online, we can conclude that even when indoctrination begins offline new converts inevitably go online to deepen their beliefs. /37
Internet communities and social media services have been integral to the recent growth of the fascist right. The rest of this article will focus on the major online sources of fascist red-pilling. /38
4chan: Ten of our seventy-five fascists credited 4chan with red-pilling them. Many other activists have referenced it as a place that was critical in their radicalization. /39
The /pol/ board is generally seen as a breeding ground for young fascists. Anticom founder Haupsturmfuhrer Pepe credits 4chan as the site that has “redpilled the most” people. /40
For a number of activists, 4chan is the last “mainstream” website they frequent before getting involved with explicitly fascist media. /41
In this post, Auralevels claims that 4chan led him to The Right Stuff (referred to as “TRS”) and The Daily Stormer (“stormer”), two neo-Nazi news and culture sites/ 42
(a recent Daily Stormer article was titled, “Disney’s Jew CEO Admits They Kiked the Goyim with Too Many Star Wars Movies,” to give an example of the kind of materials they publish). /43
4chan and its descendant 8chan make up a large chunk of what is commonly known as the alt-right. These places are considered fairly moderate by fascist activists in the Discord conversations presented. /44
The alt-right is often referred to as the “alt-light.” The intent seems to be halfway between a term of endearment and an insult. Fascist activists view the alt-right as silly, but also as a crucial recruiting ground. /45
This view is common but not universal. Some activists accuse the so-called alt-light of “paralyzing the supply chain”. They accuse them of allowing “normies” to feel radical for reading sites like Breitbart, /46
while meanwhile “[they] don’t realize that those are quite literally (((controlled op)))…” The use of parentheses here is meant to convey the belief that such websites are secretly run by Jewish elites in order to split the right. /47
Despite these doubts, it’s clear that 4chan’s /pol/ and other alt-right communities provided a great deal of the fascist right’s manpower. Three of the fascists we studied praised the so-called “the Kekosphere.” “kekism” and “kek” with their red-pilling. /48
One of the more frustrating elements about covering the fascist right is that much of what they say sounds ridiculous and makes them appear less than serious. This is why it is important to remember that these groups have a body count and represent a real threat. /49
Their absurdity does not negate their danger. /50
