Agreat deal of attention has been given recently to the rise of extremely online illiberal movements. These movements are politically extreme, on both the Right and Left. They also tend to find their expression primarily online, through people who spend a disproportionate amount of their social life on various forms of internet-related social media. Through the “alt-Right” and “Tumblr social justice left,” as they’re called, online illiberal movements are steadily gaining in influence and voice in mainstream politics.
Yet few commentators understand—and even fewer can adequately explain—their significance. To do so, I’ll make two main claims. First, the origin of today’s cyberpolitical subcultures can be found through the postmodern concept of self-constructed identity, which spilled out of the elite university system into mainstream culture. Most people today have accepted the idea that we can define who we are through branded consumer goods and services marketed by major corporations. Cyberpolitical illiberalism is deeply averse to this postmodern consumerist ethos while adopting the core concept of the self-created identity.
The result is an array of online subcultures devoted to helping participants create their own identities, in large part through transgressive behavior against the mainstream “normie.” I aim to provide a model for understanding how members of these subcultures perceive society, politics, and culture.
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