In the discussion of White Rage, we explored this realm of red pilling in politics, more specifically the Alt-right movement. The idea of red pilling originated from the Matrix where Neo would either choose the red pill which told you the harsh truth whereas taking the blue pill would allow you to live ignorant of that truth. However, the alt-right movement uses this concept to gain followers of their movement of creating a White nation. This group red pills those who are vulnerable to a drastic change in the culture of their thinking, mostly young white people. The Alt-righters are supporters of anti-liberalism, anti-feminism, white nationalism, and any form of thinking that rejects the equality of women and minorities. In order for these ideals to effectively affect people, the Alt-righters use many forms of media such as Youtube, Reddit, and alternative websites that use code messaging that sounds appealing to those who do not yet have strong political beliefs or cultural ideas that would shape your political decisions.

The media platforms that are controlled by Alt-righters are the only and easiest forms of communication. They take advantage of media platform algorithms that shape your experience around your search history. For example, the class discussed Youtube’s algorithm that recommends videos based on your watch history, so if you were to watch one video that was attempting to red pill you then you would be directed to more videos like the original one. This process is a common form of red pilling that occurs in the Alt-right movement. Similarly, the website Reddit is a big component that used to hold the forums for conversations by the Alt-right movement. Some of the conversations revolved around hypermasculinity and the objectification of women as just reproductive beings for the re-establishment of a white nation. Wholistically, the Alt-right are very much taking advantage of the internet and its availability to everyone, which makes it easier to spread their ideas and values to the world. It’s important to pay attention to the tactics that alt-righters and red pillers use to lead their audiences into the rabbit hole. For example, if you think about an alt-righter on youtube,  they’ll know how to draw your attention and make the video and their ideas entertaining. Simply, it’s important to pay attention to their language use, how they plan to persuade their audience and manipulate them. 

The main concept behind their manipulation is metapolitics. It is when you take someone’s previous ideas and reshaping them to fit a certain group’s ideology. There is no connection to politics regardless of the name as it affects the cultural values of the targetted audience instead of their political beliefs and values. And the metapolitics of the Alt-right is the rejection of social equality and fairness in order to maintain white supremacy and build a white nation.

Although we did not discuss normalizing white nationalism as much, it is an interesting problem that is in response to the success of minorities, more specifically Black people. Whites feel as though they are losing power within the society, so the Alt-right movement is an attempt at a revolution of sorts to re-assume power that they clearly have not lost.