Thread by @RichardBSpencer

We should be introspective about the #pewdiepie/ADL debacle.

In 2016-17, so many (including myself) indulged in this fantasy that a “based,” though non-political, figure from the Internet, would red-pill his millions of fans and change the world.

The “strategy” went something like this:

Step 1: Red-Pill amusing eCeleb or professional gamer
Step 2: Get him or her to make a “based” declaration
Step 3: ???

Outcome: Total Victory

We like to make fun of Boomers for being clueless, but this was the ultimate Zoomer fantasy—and one based on a series of fallacious assumptions.

These assumptions include:

1) All power is on the Internet and social media;
2) Alternative media will soon replace the “dying” establishment media;
3) Cliques of red-pilled people talking to each other on forums is a productive use of time and resources;

4) Talking about social problems that’ve arisen since 1965, will change the power structure and our situation within it;
5) The Internet is free!
6) Masses of people have “had enough” and will soon “wake up”;
7) We aren’t dissidents; we’re cool, edgy, ironic nationalists.

I could go on, but the point is that all these assumptions are childish and wrong. Participating in the Web is not participating in politics and power; it’s participating in a simulation of politics and power, not too different from playing “Age of Empires.”

If the Internet had been around in the first half of the 20th century, Lenin, Hitler, and Mao would not have achieved revolutions faster or more decisively. They’d probably never have achieved power at all, having spent their waking hours complaining about shit online.

Genuflecting to the ADL is a “cost of doing business” for Pewdiepie. His business was never and will never be social or political change. It is offering his dislocated and isolated fans a simulation of “community” and sense of meaning in their lonely and listless existence.

Pewdiepie’s various politically incorrect outbursts were funny precisely because they were meaningless hijinx, the quest to seem “edgy” and “ironic” in cyberspace.

On the Internet, the normal rules of decorum no longer apply. A person who is mild mannered in real life (that is, in the presence of other humans), can act like a wild man or freak in the hyper-reality of social media.

But as we’ve found out, the laws of power are still in effect in cyberspace. One can produce almost anything on YouTube—produce the most bizarre or inane “content” imaginable—but only within the boundaries of the regime’s taboo system and power structure.

Things move extremely fast: news breaks... hot takes are put forth and critized and debated... trends emerge, peak, and disappear... Output that would occur across years in the 20th century takes place over the course of minutes online.

But we shouldn’t confuse this frenzy of information and content for actual social, political, and moral change. Real power is unaffected by it; the orgy of Internet entertainment takes place at its feet and in its shadow.

Basing a movement online—that is, basing it in commentary and reaction—might be a necessity at this point, but it is a permanent liability, and will ensure that any revolutionary activity remains impotent and stillborn.