[Olivier Jutel wrote an extensive review of Angela Nagle's new book "Kill
All Normies - Online culture wars from 4chan and Tumblr to Trump and the
alt-right" (Zero Books, 2017) for the Australian journal Overland:
https://overland.org.au/2017/07/the-alt-right-and-the-death-
of-counterculture/
It's an essay in its own right; I'm reposting it here with Olivier's kind
permission. An other, less favorable review of the same book can be read
here: https://medium.com/@curple.turnle/i-didnt-like-kill-all-norm
ies-very-much-225c17868d78 -Florian]
The alt-right and the death of counterculture
By Olivier Jutel
6.Jul.17
Angela Nagle has written an indispensable book that allows both the
extremely online- and meme-illiterate to grasp the IRL implications of the
online culture wars. From the rise of Trump as a lulzy agent of base
enjoyment and unrestrained conspiracy, to the collapse of meaning in these
perilously ridiculous times, all are products of an ascendant online
culture which privileges affect and transgression. Nagle navigates a sea of
anime Nazis, gamers, white nationalists, masturbation abstainers and
violent misogynists in mapping the contours of online reaction and fascism.
What is essential and most controversial in her thesis is the symbiosis
between what we can call the ‘Tumblr liberal-left’ and the alt-right. Both
are products of an online cultural vanguardism that has been lauded by
techno-utopians, nominally leftist academics and journalists alike. Nagle
wields a forceful critique of the online left’s aestheticised resistance as
both self-satisfied and lacking the dynamism to undercut the alt-right’s
discourse of modern alienation, however nonsensical. This book is not an
attempt at righteously slam dunking on the basement dwelling nerds of the
alt-right or rehashing the excesses of campus identitarians. Instead it
takes on the ideological deadlocks of the left that have been masked by the
tech-fetishism of late capitalism.
The title ‘Kill All Normies’ embodies the wry humour of this book,
necessary to deal with the risible nature of the alt-right and the
horrifying obscenity, racism and misogyny that fuels the movement. At its
origin, the alt-right amounts to a lament of web 2.0 inclusivity which
ruined the memes and the ‘mean internet’ safe spaces of predominately young
white male misanthropes. At its core, the alt-right is the equivalent of a
new convert to punk complaining that ‘modern music today is so terrible’.
In Gabriella Coleman’s book on 4-Chan and the hacker collective Anonymous,
she extensively profiles the archetype troll Andrew Auernheimer, aka weev.
weev is a truly contemptible figure, an avowed white supremacist and
supporter of Dylan Roof who during the Trump campaign dedicated himself to
‘Operation Pepe’. As with so much of the alt-right, weev is equal parts
laughable and evil, claiming that his weaponisation of Pepe the Frog memes
will incite the coming race war. And despite his undeniable status as an
uber-troll of the alt-right, his interview with Coleman captures a pathetic
grandiosity in trying to impress the fact that he ‘was in the room when the
lulz was first said’. It is so jarringly stupid to think that the renewal
of fascism and white supremacy would be driven by a nerdy subcultural
one-upmanship but this is the genesis of the online culture wars identified
by Nagle.
For Nagle, the rise of the alt-right is not so much about the ideological
currency of reactionary politics but the techno-enthusiastic embrace of
transgression and disruption deracinated from politics. As with many
discussions on the state of the left, Nagle considers the epochal moment of
’68 and the youth-led demands for individual emancipation from hierarchy.
She writes, the alt-right ‘has more in common with the 1968 left’s slogan
“It is forbidden to forbid!” than it does with anything most recognize as
part of any traditionalist right.’ Where for fifty years conservatives have
been fighting sexual liberation and ‘liberal cultural excess,’ the
alt-right have formulated a style which is counter-cultural, dynamic, and
thrives, at least temporarily, on its own incoherency. Embodying the best
traditions of conservative hucksterism, Milo has been a key figure in
providing a fascist chic and garnering mainstream media access, elevating
his brand and online provocations into a reactionary culture-jamming. Nagle
observes that Richard Spencer’s ‘spitting disdain about the vulgarity of
the US consumer culture-loving, Big-Mac munching, Bush-voting, pick-up
truck owning pro-war Republican’ could be ripped from a mid-oughts edition
of AdBusters.
The alt-right has latched onto the transgressive and paranoid libertarian
style of culture jammers and hackers, which always sat uncomfortably on the
left, and celebrates the liberation of the individual against ghastly
sheeple and normie culture. In the process they have disrupted the poles of
youth culture, allowing for an easy slippage between gaming, lib-hating
