Friend Infected With Right Wing Brain Worms - What to Do?

‪I honestly don’t know where else to talk to about this.

So a longtime IRL friend (we’ve been friends since 7th grade) of mine who I still hang out with fairly frequently
has enmeshed himself in the online circle of aggrieved man-children surrounding “comicsgate” and the Right-ish shithead politics involved with it. He himself recently finished a graphic novel and is trying to raise money to get it independently published, which I suspect was how he got sucked into this.

Recently I noticed a rightward slant to a lot of his social media posts but it wasn’t until today when I took a closer look and saw that he’s been hobnobbing with a lot of alt-right adjacent type folks and actively arguing with “SJWs”. He’s always been an opinionated, stubborn bastard (as am I) but his opinions were usually relegated to things like comics and movies. Now he’s apparently following dudes like Stephen Crowder and tweeting recommendations for books by Ben Shapiro. BEN MOTHERFUCKING SHAPIRO. Ugh.

Maybe I’m a shitty friend but that’s kinda beyond the pale, no? I can’t expect everyone in my life to share my politics but some kind of baseline “don’t be a right-wing piece of shit” rule still applies, right?

It’s just heartbreaking because he’s not a jerk at all IRL. He’s always been a good friend and has helped me out and had my back numerous times. But in his online life he’s kinda turning into a real “why won’t you let me debate you, coward” sort of douche.

So far this hasn’t come up because these days we don’t really interact online much (and in fact it was only today I realized how far down the rabbit hole he’d gone). We get together to do pub trivia once a week and that’s usually our hang out time.

He’s aware of my political leanings but then again I’m not sure he understands why his newfound preoccupation with owning “SJWs” online would be alarming to me. I feel debating him would be fruitless. I’m too thin-skinned anyway. I dunno. This is such a bummer to me.

I think lightly sticking to the “that’s not really my experience, why do you say that?” soft peddling of dissent works if you’re trying to remain friends. Being involved in his non-political social life helps, because sometimes this shit is contrarian internet junk where dudes lack a really social outlet and decide the best way to do so is to get really angry and blow off steam, which is where these outrage merchants really dig in

If you do feel the need to call out, be cautious and stick to issues and not widespread anti-whatever stances. As much as those types like to complain about identity politics, they tend to stick all of their issues together and anyone challenging one piece is an affront to their adopted conservative identity.

Being involved in his non-political social life helps, because sometimes this shit is contrarian internet junk where dudes lack a really social outlet and decide the best way to do so is to get really angry and blow off steam, which is where these outrage merchants really dig in

Yeah he’s always been the type to adopt an opinion and be extremely, rigidly adamant about it and then later adopt a completely different opinion and act as if he’d always thought that way. Being his friend for almost 25 years I’m pretty used to that but this time his gripes and resentments are being reinforced by a whole community of fellow agry nerds with which he networks. It’s kind of terrifying, to be honest.

The only remotely “comforting” aspect of this whole business is that most of my friend’s bullshit is currently confined to the world of comics. Which is probably why I haven’t noticed it until now.

I suppose, to add a minor point to what mh has said, stick to the talking about the ideas/behaviours rather than making it personal ("that idea doesn't ring true to me" rather than "you're wrong and bad, and here's why")? Possibly implicit too, but I often find that approach works better than personalising things too much.

I have this, though its a relative (in their 30s). Its been gradually increasing over the last few years, jordan peterson, ben shapiro, there are 37 genres now , snowflakes, virtue signalling, brexit, cultural marxism, jacob rees mogg, socialists. The own understanding or nuance isn't there, the straight repetition of right wing talking points.

What to do? the conclusion Ive come to, is...nothing. You have to look at yourself here, what is this debating you're imagining is going to happen. A debate is when two people accept the premise or framework of such. If you think you're going to go in their house and change their mind, it doesnt work like that. Any 'debate' should be initiated by them, not you, and only partake if they are asking you something, not if they are telling you something and putting a question mark on the end. Otherwise, you're being used by someone honing their opinion, you're fulfilling a role. The radicalized person never asks open questions.

But also you have to be honest with yourself - any kind of "yes, but dont you think that"....this is no good, for anyone!

I think when this happens you're dealing with something more existential than a debate really covers. 'Are you one of us, or not, anything else is just hot air'. I was once asked in email, by my relative, about my thoughts on the situation with Russia. I have a fairly detailed answer trying to cover as many bases as possible. Did it make any difference to anything? Ive no idea because there it was never mentioned again, it wasnt what they were looking for, they were looking for Britain good Russia bad - any detail on it, they saw as obsfucation, a dilution of the greater point. I will answer if they ask questions like this, and answer in good faith, but I wont push anything. Any such debate is framed around 'winning' (damn, all those videos on youtube where somebody is EVISCERATING or DESTROYING somebody else!)

I have a simple(ish) rule, if someone asks me openly or in good faith, I will respond the same. If someone talks at me, the best they'll get is "nah, not for me, dont see that at all", but they are more likely to get "ah, no idea, dunno owt about it mate". You don't have to be involved in statements masquerading as conversations!

Sorry its a bit unfocussed, Ive had this on the go for a while! quite hard to condense thoughts on the fly

One thing that struck me about this form of self-radicalization is how much its about repetition - simplification and repetition. For people making the mistake of engaging on some of these topics, its not about being on the right or wrong side of that topic, its about having that topic be the one with airtime, conversation time. A conversation about 'the BBC and the universities are brainwashing youth with cultural marxism, the police will come after you for using the wrong pronoun, Birmingham is now a no go city run by muslims". Really? This isn't a conversation that even deserves 'I don't see it like that", or any of my time! Its better to steer conversation elsewhere. Its better for this to be taking up less of their thought and talk time, and its certainly better for it to be taking up less of mine.

De-radicalizing people, i think is better achieved by getting them to think about some other damn things, engaging just hardens still further

(not saying your friend is or isnt radicalized, but when people talk and it sounds like their repeating the words of someone else, well)

I'm not a good enough person to try to save anyone, I write off people who go beyond dipping their toes in the waters of Peterson/Shapiro/et al.. I struggle to be comfortably social with even 'mainstream' Republicans these days, the American conservative worldview is so aggressively reactionary and hateful - your average suburban GOP voter just hasn't progressed to saying the quiet part loud.

sage stuff from anvil there

yep

also youre not his da, short answer

Repeating "I've never seen that" helps, as often it gets a "well, neither have I but" acknowledgement.

why not murder them

NAILS IT

get over it. people have opinions. furthermore people are more than their media consumption habits and painting somebody as "infected" because of their media choices is some weird dehumanization Othering that shouldnt impact a real life friendship. OP says they are irl friends that hang out w this person once a week. you don't feel comfortable discussing political topics with them in real life, yet you will make a big post on the internet and talk about them with strangers? this passive aggressive signalling through media choices has poisoned YOUR mind as well.

if it's a person you care about irl then talk to them. if you can't stand their social media posts you can hide them. it is like a two click action. if you need everyone of your friends to subscribe to the same media you do then it would seem the friendship is secondary to your social media feed. get over yourself.

https://i.imgur.com/1WU8ron.jpg

being into comicsgate is not about "media preferences"

To be honest, the main issue for me isn’t “can I change his mind?” That won’t happen. It’s more, “can I continue being friends with him?” If he stays confined to complaining about “SJWs” ruining the comics industry online, maybe, but if it devolves beyond that? I’m not sure it will, but I can’t tell anymore. It seems like a lot of seemingly sane people’s brains have been broken over the last few years.

Uh, x-post

Adam, your post is more than a little fucked. 'Dehumanization' and 'othering' is exactly what this shit is all about. It's informed by very thinly-veiled white supremacy, and that kind of reappropriation of the language of oppression is exactly what they use to paint themselves as victims. 'Victims' of people who just want to see their own perspectives represented in media which is overwhelmingly white and male and hetero. You don't get to champion a viewpoint like that and then brush it off with a 'but I'm a cool guy otherwise'.

I wasn't even aware of comicsgate before this thread but of course there's a comicsgate, and of course it's in opposition to the exact comics and creators I would've expected. Expected but depressing as hell.

I dunno, man, no one can really tell you whether to remain friends with someone or not. Personally, I couldn't, but then I've never had trouble disconnecting myself from toxic people. The employment of 'SJW' as a pejorative is so pernicious because that particular utterance is several steps removed from what it's actually saying. You pooh-pooh the SJWs, which means you're against the social justice warriors, which tells me that you're against social justice, which in turn suggests you're for social injustice. And if you're a straight white dude, that tells me pretty much everything I need to know.

Shunning and ostracization are underrated methods of letting people know that their antisocial (in the most literal sense) views/behavior are unacceptable, imo.

I dunno, they seem pretty popular right now and I don't see them having much of an effect. Not that you need the effect to be clear, I don't think I could remain friends with a comicsgater either.

won't somebody save the alt-right from dehumanization and othering lmao

Is comicsgate different than gamergate? I've cut off ties with most of my family because of their abhorrent views. I am not making small talk and sharing my life with them out of duty when they believe and say shitty things about women and other races. I put in my time trying to rationalize or have them try to restrain themselves. Out.

It’s basically Gamergate 2

From what I can tell, anyway

Lovely. Sigh.

it is absolutely a personal decision to make. personally i have enough problems in my life and i don't need "friends" who are continually spewing toxic bullshit, whether it's openly or on a passive aggressive level. i'm not equivocating here, but i haven't found this to be a specifically right-wing problem. leftists who spend most of their time, in 2018, complaining about how terrible hillary clinton is will get the chopping block just as surely as anybody who uses the term "sjw" pejoratively will.

i've said it before and i'll keep saying it - when i cut people off it's not because i'm judging them as inferior. if anybody is "inferior" it's me, because i haven't got the energy to put up with that sort of thing anymore. i'm totally occupied with my own crazy, and don't have time for anybody else's.

^^^ This too. I've had to put space between friends that I like but they spend all day texting me mundane complaints about shit everyone hates.

The Clintons are terrible tbf

This thread has really great clusterfuck potential

completely baffled by adam's post. latebloomer, you have my sympathies, i don't know what exactly i'd do. i'm on a weekly bar trivia team as a device to regularly see a certain cluster of friends and shoot the shit about movies, and i really can't imagine it being an enjoyable or meaningful experience if below the surface was the awareness that one of them is carrying water for alt-right talking points as a way of blowing off steam online or whatever it is. that's not a person i want in my life. but the exact etiquette and approach of making that cut, i don't know. for me personally, if they were really committed to this stuff i couldn't stay friends (and probably, we would have drifted apart long ago for not having much in common). we've spent a lot of time talking about this w/ regard to right-wing family, but friends are a slightly different matter in a lot of ways...

if it's not QUITE to that point... hrrrrrm. i imagine staging an intervention would only feed the "libs are out to shut us down" mentality, but is there some viable version of "hey, man, i noticed you've been expressing some intense feelings online, has everything been okay?" or maybe even a way around to discussing his emotional state/life situation without mentioning the political stuff --- you're not his therapist, but if you are his friend it is mayyyyybe conceivable that he's still early in being seduced by this stuff (or susceptible to it being a brief phase that he later looks back on with embarrassment). and that it might be genuinely useful to open up a channel to talk about whatever it is that's leading him to frustration and grievance and blaming-the-sjws. it depends what kind of friendship it is, how close you are, how much cred you have with him versus how much he feels the youtube mini-limbaughs really get him, how much work it's worth to you, all of that stuff.

I liked South Park's depiction of Kyle's dad staying up nights to troll online like it's his job while drinking red wine.

If you have a racist friend
Now is the time, now is the time
People have opinions. Get over it.

I mean, wrt this particular sitch, I can hang with people who don't agree with me politically/philosophically/religiously/etc but there are certain uncrossable ideological lines and stanning for white supremacy is one of those. Maybe laying it out in terms of 'disagreement is fine, championing oppression is not' would be helpful?

Argh, this thread made me google comicsgate and now I hate knowing what it is. Tell your friend I blame him for that.

pretty sure most of the people i drink with are some kind of right wing but it's not like we spend much time talking about politics except when they accuse me of being a Maoist

and i agree with them and tell them they'll be up against the wall first

Also, one possible tack to take wrt comics creators in particular is to discuss the reappropriation of Pepe the Frog. Ask him how he would feel about people hijacking his own work to express political opinions completely counter to his own. And how he feels about a professional like Van Sciver in particular doing just that. Even divorced of the political implications, it's hugely disrespectful and unprofessional.

Oh man, I just read up on comicsgate too. This shit is so unbelievably stupid.

Yep :(

I think the thing these trolling dipshits don't get is that you don't get to claim "oh, I'm actually a nice guy in person, I'm just trolling" when 100% of your public persona is racist, sexist, garbage

if you genuinely believe the problem is that it's the "wrong people" getting work or acclaim based only on their ethnicity, gender, or views... then spend your time advocating for people you think are talented and help them find an audience

latebloomer, has your friend published anything before? there genuinely are some barriers to entry if you're not established, but I don't think any of them have to do with being a white man. I knew some people who genuinely tried to break into mainstream comics a number of years ago, and none of the reasons they failed to get a strong foothold had anything to do with this comicsgate horseshit.

Not to get too off track but was a picture of a bunch of young women enjoying milkshakes really a catalyst?

women can't be employed in a coveted field, happy, and pictured together. it just drives dudes completely insane

I also didn't know about Comicsgate (or I knew, but about the one a few years ago around "hey guys maybe don't put traced porn shots on comic covers") - the article here makes the point that it doesn't even have the figleaf of ethics in games journalism, it's literally just "we fear the rise of women and brown people"

https://www.inverse.com/article/41132-comicsgate-explained-bigots-milkshake-marvel-dc-gamergate

I am not sure if laughing is the right response to idiotic claims, but I snorted when I saw this gem from one of these comicsgate turds

good lord pic.twitter.com/S2aY5Fcnwg

— BAKOON (@BAKKOOONN) May 14, 2018

I think the ongoing collapse of legitimacy of liberal institutions, increasingly anxiety producing omnipresence of (social)media, increasing forgetfulness of 20th century totalitarianisms (and hence the taboos around them) and finally ambient stress from environmental collapse all push ideological identification closer to the Cult mindset than it's ever been since the 40s. Or at the very least the melding of Cult tendencies familiar from the mid-century with political discourse seems like a natural evolution of the form. Hence, you should take your cues from this guy:

https://harpers.org/archive/2013/11/the-man-who-saves-you-from-yourself/

All nerd media needs to morph into a wall-to-wall multicultural pansexual orgy until all the chuds are stricken with massive rage aneurysms, at which time we can return to business as usual.

xpost Yes, I feel like deprogramming techniques are probably going to be an increasingly-useful tool to have in one's belt, sadly.

Yes, funny that.

i think a big factor is that political opinions form part of personal identities, come all bundled-up together, and largely decide who we socialize with. it's hard to change your opinion on any one thing if it would alienate you from your "tribe", but if you find out you actually kind of like the other guys the whole old bundle can be jettisoned and a new one formed

This is the root of a lot of this definitely. If you explicitly code or present as an opponent, you set the bar that much higher. You're explicitly and pre-emptively endorsing their rejection of anything you might say. It puts people in reactive mode, 10 men behind the ball

Not doing that goes a long way

is this irony, how does one not do that

Depends on the context.

In 2019 I was out somewhere in the run up to the election and I got talking to various people who were Lib Dems, with all the comes with that. I didn't say I was pro-Corbyn, I said I was an undecided traditional LibDem but thinking of possibly maybe voting Labour this time

Remove the labelling and talk about whats underneath, but taking off your own label makes that a lot easier

guessing the catch here is that belonging to a certain ethnicity or religion already marks you out as an opponent to many, so not as easy to go incognito

i guess being anti-brexit and anti-EU has made it easier for me to talk to "both sides" since the usual labels don't fit and people are more likely to at least talk before they can identify as the enemy. not being in a party and not being pro-corbyn maybe helped me a little with challenging the worst aspects of anti-corbynism. at least some corbynites were more receptive to my criticism when they worked out i wasn't a tory or centrist. there is some level of privilege at work here since some identities are harder/impossible to just peel off

xp yeah exactly

also in my case those things feel more like accidents than some kind of clever strategy for relating to people and there are things i can't or don't want to hide or tone down even if that would make communication easier in some situations

guessing the catch here is that belonging to a certain ethnicity or religion already marks you out as an opponent to many, so not as easy to go incognito

Of course, and many other signifiers too, it depends on the context. Its a route I've gone down largely for the reasons of this thread, dealing with right wing relatives with brainworms). But "Speaking as a prominent leftist" is of limited utility and generally counter-productive

this reminds me of some years ago when a certain then-up-and-coming far-right troll was hanging out with a relatively prominent leftish-feminist broadsheet columnist and they apparently had a whale of a time together "despite their differences" and incidentally they were both privately-educated white brits

After a bit of a pause, I'm back into Mike Duncan's Revolutions Podcast at the moment, the bit on the peasants in 1870s France is reminiscent of some of the themes in this thread!

I'm still in 1948, looking forward to getting to the bits I remember from Zola novels, the shopkeepers in Le Ventre de Paris do remind me a great deal of a certain kind of English people in the modern day.

1848 sorry!

thanks for the reminder. I've not been back to the Russian Revolution since he took a break last year and there are a lot of new eps.

one for my fellow tankies - the Bolshevik Bank Heist - Stalin as a swashbuckling countercultural hero!

An old boyfriend of my sister has just contacted me via Facebook to ask me to say hello to her - I don't know why he couldn't contact her directly as she's never off Facebook. Anyway, I remember this guy, all those years ago, as a really good looking if rather vain sort of gothy punk guy but he's been living in New York for years - I assume he's now a US citizen - and his Facebook page is full of pro-Trump, anti-BLM stuff. I don't think I'll bother telling her.

Sounds like she blocked him before.

Yes, that's possible. She's had to block at least one other person from her past who has turned into a racist, right wing wanker - that one lives in China btw.

i'm up to the massacre of champ de mars in the mike duncan revolutions pod (since it's mentioned just upthread for some reason)

i think it's p good but i have to make some kind of comment and/or protest re duncan's french pronunciation, which is in my opinion PECULIAR lol

the radical parisian district of cor-dell-YEE!

(Pssst mark, check out this thread, it's a good 'un: Political/History Podcasts - Recommendations)

thank you :)

I preferred it when he was plugging harry's razors rather than the dodgy hair restoring treatments at the start of his recent Russian revolution eps!

tbh i just skip all that stuff

I've signed up for audible, my male pattern baldness is in retreat, got some really great suitcases and I only shave with the finest German steel now.

tmi tbh

I listen to it on spotify and just leave it running ep by ep, plugs and ads included. It's usually when I'm cooking.

a good thing about US podcasts is you usually wouldn't be able to get the services that advertise on them here even if you wanted to

the "audible" that duncan talks abt is presumably also the "audible" that lanchester refers to in his very bad ghost story

so you can definitely get it in the netherworld

'loose term' friend has been asking me to go over and sort out his laptop because he's been 'hacked'. Further questioning of other friends turns out he's been heavily into T3legram for the past year and was also looking at "Jews who hate white people" sites! Further questioning and he believes earth is flat and street-lights are all secretly embedded with 5g spy robots. Think I'll pass and let his laptop rot.

How much of eg flat earth belief do you think is real?

Flat eartherism has been gradually on the rise for..10? 15? years. And for a long time I'd put it down as kind of pseudo-real, partly affectation. Maybe interesting but not consequential or of wider relevance. But I feel like it became more real over time and/or there was never that much pseudo about its growth

Your friend can't be all that distant if he's asking you to go over and help? Any signs before this?

waht

Lads, most of the people you meet or are forced together with in this life are worth ignoring

there is a young lad I sometimes talk to who's got an adorable little Manchester Terrier called Romo. Anyway t'other week he starts going on about "The Great Reset" ... and that's it I'm gone!

Ben Shapiro: "Joe Biden is the Kurt Cobain of politics. He put a shotgun in the mouth of the American body politic and then pulled the trigger. And the brains are on the wall" pic.twitter.com/7om4KwvAbv

— Jason Campbell (@JasonSCampbell) March 2, 2022

So, wait, who is the Kathleen Hanna in this metaphor?

Pretty sure that Nancy Pelosi is the Dave Grohl.

Bernie Sanders is the Eddie Vedder.

Chuck Schumer is the Butch Vig.

Beau Biden is the guy from Green River

Ben Shapiro is the Andy Rooney.

Okay as long as Bill Clinton is the Chad Channing and Kamala Harris is the Kurt Loder, I am satisfied that the metaphor works.

Hunter Biden - Silverchair dude

Mitch McConnell is Tad

anyone else see the state of the union last night when stephen breyer tossed his bass straight up in the air and it came straight down and bonked him in the head?

The Truss brainworm isn't gaining traction

Sad to report that my friend passed away in his sleep last October at age 40. The dalliance with scary politics was thankfully short-lived and while we hadn’t seen each other since the start of the pandemic, we were still on good terms. Appropriately enough our last interaction was reminiscing about the time we spent as kids seeing movies. I miss him.

RIP Sean 1982-2022

Ah man, that’s a rough age

So sorry to hear.

There’s an acquaintance from college who I’ve been friends with on social media for years, though we haven’t seen each other in person for ages. When I knew him he was a very sweet guy, iirc he was openly gay. In the last few years his social media has been filled with posts about becoming a born-again Christian, recognizing himself as a worthless sinner undeserving of God’s love, etc. As I understand it, he devoted himself to God at a time of total desolation while working in a remote area of the South Pacific.

I found his posts interesting sometimes, they didn’t usually map on to a specific ideology, though it seemed like he was following pretty hard-line people. Unfortunately he’s recently started repeating the most rancid transphobic shit, both the usual scary viral anecdotes and also really nasty things about Lia Thomas. And he seems to have adopted a version of Christianity that argues against even being nice and kind - because of course using someone’s pronouns, or just letting them live their life, is letting them continue in sin, and endangering their soul. So the very idea of accepting someone for who they are is enabling their damnation.

I should probably just unfriend him and not think about it beyond that, it’s not like we were close, there’s just something really sad about it, it feels like he’s upping the zealotry to hold onto the intensity that came with his conversion. He doesn’t seem like someone who is happy. I’m tempted to message him to tell him how upsetting I find his posts, and that his version of Christianity is one that repels me and basically everyone I know, but I can’t imagine it would get through at all. I would probably just get filed away as someone doing the work of Satan to tempt him away from what Christ demands of him.

When the brain worms have tunneled all the way to your fingers.

Jeffrey Epstein had some balls.

He found Bill Gates’ girlfriend, paid for her software course, and then emailed him asking to be paid back as a way to try to bribe Gates into funding him.

He was too much of a man for this feminized era. https://t.co/VI6aujHS1e pic.twitter.com/RXxYjcS5kO

— Richard Hanania (@RichardHanania) May 21, 2023

xp Weird how so many people who profess to have grasped their own sinfulness are still so busy policing it in others. That strikes me as the wrong outcome.

xp I never know who these fuckwits even are.