How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society, and Capture American Politics
May 27, 2024
CNN correspondent Reeve draws on a decade’s worth of her own reporting to offer a riveting debut chronicle of the rise of the alt-right. Tracing the movement from its beginnings on such message boards as 8chan to the January 6 Capitol attack, Reeve depicts the alt-right as more organized than is commonly believed and urges for more mainstream news coverage, arguing that a policy of “deplatforming” has not quelled the movement but instead allowed it to fester in the shadows. Through in-depth interviews with key players, including 8chan founder Fred Brennan, who helped inculcate the internet’s “incel” subculture, and neo-Nazi Richard Spencer, who organized the 2017 Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Va., she gives a fine-grained account of the movement’s philosophical and sociological origins online, where young men “disillusioned” with life, especially their relationships with women, developed fascistic worldviews that they could “try on... without risk” in anonymous forums. Though different wings of the movement have risen and fallen (Brennan and Spencer now both partly repudiate their pasts; Spencer gained media attention in 2022 for listing his politics as “moderate” on the dating app Bumble), Reeve warns that the movement’s core of “dark but gleeful nihilism,” which promotes violence as justifiable under a corrupt and imminently collapsing regime, has only grown stronger. This immersive political history will captivate readers concerned about the future of democracy.