Sucking on That Lollipop: Pathological White Masculinity, 4chan, and Trolls

This week, sexist and racist trolls have borrowed the tactics of the CIA and Scotland Yard and sent in agents provocateurs to spread disharmony among online activists. Using stock photos and the stolen information of real activists, users of sites such as 4chan started hashtags including #Endfathersday and #whitescantberaped that are deliberately designed to provoke sections of the social justice left into internal arguments. 

Most of these trolls have posed as women of colour, whom they call “black bitches”. Other users have falsified racist tweets from prominent feminists and leftists, and created sock-puppet accounts to make sure the fake tweets are seen and condemned. Users including Shafiqah Hudson picked up on the scam, and identified at least 200 such accounts. Someone has gone to considerable effort to pull off a swindle intended to exploit the “weaknesses” of a movement that, despite a tendency to turn on itself, is growing in strength.

I find Twitter to be an interesting space in the digital public sphere. Does it constitute a sophisticated site of public discourse? No. Is it part of a dumbing down of the public discourse? Quite likely.

I have an ambivalent relationship with Twitter and other forms of social media.

Twitter is a useful tool for building “brand awareness” and for “celebrities” to create a relationship with their public. Twitter is also a fun site for sharing information. However, does Twitter constitute a space for sophisticated and reflective discourse? No. Is Twitter a space for “politics”? I am unsure.

Twitter can be used by political elites and others to monitor, shape, and influence the public mood (or at least that of those people who are “plugged in” to that media). Twitter and other social media can also be a distraction where symbolic politics–”hashtag activism”, “Black Twitter” and other online communities, “likes” and “shares”–are a distraction and detour from the types of substantive political work and advocacy which create change in the material and power relationships that govern society.

Retrograde social attitudes and behavior of the “real world” will, of course, be mirrored online. The challenge of online media is that there is little to no accountability for bad behavior. The medium itself by creating a sense of false intimacy, fueled by immediacy, and with the mask of anonymity, encourages racist, sexism, and homophobia behavior.

Trolls are part of the online ecosphere. In their offline relationships, research has demonstrated that they are likely to be pathetic and sadistic misanthropes. The Internet gives them a space for validation. Trolling can also be part of a coordinated campaign to disrupt, distract, and disorient one’s political opposition.

Such tactics predate the Internet by thousands of years.

The group “4chan” recently made a concerted effort to disrupt the “feminist” Twitter community through what they labeled as “Operation Lollipop”. 4chan used cyber-racism, sexism, and misogyny to game Twitter, and by doing so, created confusion and exhaustion among the latter’s members.

The most generous read of Operation Lollipop is that it was a type of political performance art designed to expose the gullibility of self-described “Left” and “Progressive” online “activists”.

Spiked Online’s James Heartfield suggests that:

Hoaxing is a great and venerable tradition…

The defenders of Twitter’s hashtag activism have reacted angrily to the 4chan hoaxers. Why? The hoaxers’ fake tweets and parody hashtags are all part of the fun, too. The ‘genuine’ hashtaggers complain that Operation Lollipop was sexist in its inspiration – which is no doubt true. But even bad motives can have positive outcomes. And you would have to take into account the recent survey of misogynist trolling that found as many women as men were engaged in it.

In the Guardian yesterday, Laurie Penny reflected on the 4chan hoax, painting a picture of sad men angrily reacting against the growing and successful movement of internet feminists. Well, possibly, but it is just as likely that a lot of people enjoy the vicarious thrill of insulting others and running away. There is something pretty pompous about the rigid etiquette of the Twitter activists’ call-out culture that begs to be mocked.
If hashtag activism is easily parodied, then that shows what is wrong with it.

The more critical read is that Operation Lollipop is a manifestation of white male privilege and supremacy. The paradox of white male power is that for all of its dominance it is easily threatened; white male power’s members and owners are forever afraid that their unearned advantages and entitlements will be taken away from them.

One of the friends of WARN, Werner Herzog’s Bear who writes at his own site Notes From the Iron Bound (which more folks should be reading by the way), is offering up a series called “The Pathological White Masculinity Files”.

Regarding 4chan and “Operation Lollipop”, he deftly observes how:

One of the worst things about pathological white American masculinity is that it carries with it white supremacist assumptions. Regardless of anything else, the fact that white men are to be the rulers of society is not to be challenged our questioned. This is a big reason, naturally, why the fact of Barack Obama’s presidency has caused unprecedented disrespect for the office and intransigence in Congress. 

The same goes for the Internet. The computer world has long been heavily white and very masculine, and the trolls at 4chan aim to keep it that way. They just don’t want black and brown people, and especially black and brown women, to be using “their” space. Their upbringing and this society’s assumptions about white masculinity make them feel not as if this is a terrible they are doing, but simply defending their birthright. 

The pathologies of white masculinity are at their worst when white men feel cheated of the privileges they think are rightfully theirs. This leads them to attack others whom they hold responsible, sometimes with words, sometimes with bullets. Hence the actions of Elliott Rodger, who felt he was “owed” the sexual favors of women. This pathology comes out with gunfire, but it also happens every day via rhetorical violence on the Internet.

I have a series of posts on the various methods and strategies used by Right-wing trolls to disrupt, harass, and sow confusion online that I completed but did not post. I will be offering those here on WARN over the next few weeks.

As a beginning, I have some questions.

1. Why are “progressives” and “liberals” apparently (and this claim would make for an interesting puzzle to research) so vulnerable to trolling and online harassment? Is this a function of political personality type and a sincere belief in the abstract value of sincere “dialogue”, “discourse”, and “free speech” that authoritarian conservatives do not possess?

2. How can we better educate students and the general public about being more “cyber-literate”? What would it take to help the general public to understand the relationship between trolls, propaganda, disinformation, and more generally how to be smarter consumers of online information?

3. I believe that comment sections should be moderated. I prefer smart engaged comments that readers can learn from and which advance the conversation as opposed to name-calling, personal barbs, and other detours. On many sites which focus on politics (and especially identity politics) the comment sections are overrun with trolls. This appears to make a site look “full” and generate traffic. However, the site is offering up the metaphorical low quality buffet at a truck stop or strip mall. I prefer to offer up something a bit more healthy. That is my choice; I respect and allow others their own.

I have no use for trolls and as a rule do not engage them. What is the appeal of participating in a “dialogue” with someone (assuming they are not a bot) who is immune to the rules of civil discourse?

4. The American Right-wing is far more coordinated and focused in its efforts to distract and dominate online spaces as a means of shaping public opinion and silencing the opposition. The Left, Centrists, and Progressives are losing that fight…badly. Is this because of resources, naivete, cowardice? What can be done to rectify the situation?