62: Manifesting Something Awful (w/Dale Beran)

The genius parade continues this week with co-host Dale Beran, author of It Came from Something Awful: How a Toxic Troll Army Accidentally Memed Donald Trump into Office. All three of us writers are legit blown away by Beran’s layered and penetrating coverage of the chan-verse-to-Capitol Riot pipeline.

After last week’s journey led by Dr. Annie Kelly through the anti-feminism of the high-testosterone sites that prepped cyberspace for QAnon, Beran takes us deep into the cosplayed souls of the man-child nihilists who created an online politics of chaos, and served it up to the MAGA movement.

Equal parts deep-internet history, social psychology, and critique of late capitalism, Beran’s lamentation to based and wasted youth still manages to hold out some hope for the future — and we’re going to ask him why.

Show Notes

The Return of Anonymous

Who Are the Incels of 4Chan, and Why Are They So Angry?

It Came From Something Awful: How a Toxic Troll Army Accidentally Memed Donald Trump into Office