In 2016 a bunch of loser liberals tried to convince the world that Facebook got Trump elected. If you think 4chan and memes have that much power over people, then surely you must believe that Facebook memes can change the world as well? If that’s the case, then why aren’t we winning? We have memes. Ever since there has been a lot of media about how scary the internet is and how it’s single-handedly brainwashing generations. I think it’s a further mystification of class relations and I don’t buy it. That’s really the same argument we’ve always had on the left. To what degree does the superstructure push the base and vice versa.
You can’t deny that Trump has been a piece of shit practically his whole life. He was friends with ghouls his whole life. All those people didn’t grow up with 4chan, so of course they don’t express ghoulishness through frog memes. They have their own dogwhistles though. Trump comes into power at a time of crisis for Empire, right around the time the people who did grow up with 4chan, reddit, etc all are old enough to be hired for government jobs. Those people do express the baseline bigotry of broader society through chad/virgin memes. The reason why boomers like those memes is because they express something that is already present, just in a new “hip” way. You see both of those things, Trump coming to power, and these people using these memes that only you are supposed to know about and think they causally related.
Not to mention that we all spend a lot of time online because we’re the generation that grew up with 4chan, digg, reddit, etc. We’re hyper aware of internet culture and memes so when we see it “enter the wild” it also feels causal. You saw an action (raiding the capital), you were aware of all the memes because you’re online, and therefore the memes must play some part in convincing people to go suicide by Capitol Police.
Anyways, it’s my hypothesis.
Yes, people like Jim and Ron use 4chan/8chan. The same way you and I use Hexbear. But you were saying that 4chan, as the origin, has spread to every facet of society. You think Jim and Ron were just two normal dudes before 4chan and 8chan? They chose to go to those places because, like I said in the previous post, the things they like are already there.
If it was 150 years ago, Jim and Ron would have been really into pamphlets or racist freemason groups. The Shaman would have had an identity centered around something else. I’m trying to impress that 4chan itself isn’t uniquely helping fascism. Fascists don’t have power because 4chan and 8chan allow them to recruit or spread their message. Fascist power is rooted in a relationship with productive forces and capital. 4chan didn’t infect Trump and his cabinet, it didn’t infect Tim Pool or Ben Shapiro or Nick Fuentes. They were already like that. At any period there would be people like that because the organization of our society produces those people, not what kind of sites people visit.