The world at large is just beginning to discover that it's a lot more than just memes. Over the past few years, many have been discussing what's been called the internet's “radicalization engine,” a collection of online spaces and behaviors of content-selection algorithms which have been leading some young people into extreme political ideologies. Those discussing this issue focus on explaining how people are unwittingly introduced to extremist content and communities and how that content and those communities present arguments that appeal to young people, particularly young men. In a world where arguments for extreme ideologies have become increasingly effective, this is a very important area of discussion. However, this conversation often fails to explore the many forces which enable such communities to spawn and thrive and which prime some lonely young men to be influenced by arguments that most people would find abhorrent if encountered in everyday life.
Often, these forces get dismissed. Some say that anger is the nature of young men, and that this is just another manifestation of that prehistoric angst. Others argue that radicalization is bound to occur when people are able to talk freely with like-minded people without moderation and that the internet has merely accelerated the natural process by which people have always formed tribes. Sometimes, these forces are identified as part of the nature of the internet, but not explored. Nevertheless, there is great value in understanding the particular elements of the social internet which are causing problems we observe in the world at large.
One of these is irony. Irony pervades internet culture, from ubiquitous ideas as basic as the “dank meme” to totally irony-dominated spaces like many 4chan boards and subreddits. Of course, irony is no invention of the information age, nor is it harmful by itself. However, irony plays a unique role in some anonymous and pseudonymous spaces online. Irony online, while sometimes used straightforwardly to mock ideas, is often used to shock and to confuse outsiders with a barrage of insincere ideas that can only be interpreted by those very familiar with the population of the space, if anyone. In many spaces it is impossible to distinguish between the ironic and the unironic. Often, the distinction ceases to even matter in what’s referred to as postirony. Online irony itself can serve as a path to extremism. Consider imageboards such as 4chan's infamous (and very NSFW) politics board, which are built on expressing the most repugnant positions conceivable, usually with a degree of irony. This creates a space where actual political extremists can comfortably congregate and hide behind a veil of memes if ever called out, insisting that outsiders just don't get the joke.
But online irony also has more indirect negative effects on the denizens of the darker corners of the social web. It fosters environments where genuine ideas and feeling cannot be discussed and wholehearted attempts at connection and discussion are met with mockery. Together, users around the world come together to create nihilist hell after nihilist hell. Why is irony such a dominant mode online? Certainly one factor is the demographics of the users. Many of the spaces most steeped in online irony are populated primarily by teenage boys and young men. Their propensity for edgy nihilism is hard to deny. Irony as a rejection of the wholesome is a suitable tactic for adolescent social rebellion.
It's also due to the nature of anonymity online. Many have discussed how anonymity frees people from social consequences permitting them to express unsavory beliefs and tell off-color jokes which they never would IRL. But there’s much more to the phenomenon. First, anonymity often negates the idea of a personal relationship. Most forms of social engagement are personal. People want to communicate with those whom they know and with whose identities they are familiar with. Larger-scale communication is usually less social in the colloquial sense. Consider an announcement or a book or a movie, for examples. But while these online spaces are very social, they are often bereft of personal relationships. This is particularly true on forums and imageboards and less true in spaces such as Twitter in which users follow one another. Instead of communicating with individual people, everyone is talking to everybody, and that to any user, all others are somewhat indistinct.
Second, anonymous community impacts individual identity. There are many reasons people use anonymity, some of which have more to do with security than identity. But in an anonymous community, users are socializing. They are finding communities they personally identify with. Because attributes of users cannot be distinguished, in the context of this social situation, users are only the words that they say. This goes beyond users not knowing the backgrounds and identities of each other; it informs the role each user takes in the space.
If with one group of friends, I dress conventionally, and with another I don clown makeup and slapstick antics, in the second case, I'm' not a conventionally dressed guy disguised as a clown. In that space, I’m just a clown. By existing in a space where I take a clown's role, I become one. Similarly, in an anonymous online space, users don’t have the same identities or even concept of identity. In that space people are only meaningfully a hivemind of words on a screen. When they participate, users take on part of that identity. That doesn’t mean that users cease to have personal backgrounds and ideas of their own, only that these things must be expressed in the anonymous collective consciousness if they are to be meaningful. And when individual identity and ideas are gone, it should not be surprising that truth becomes murky, a perfect recipe for postirony. For a collective mind, insincerity is an easy meme. When you’re insincere, you can say anything. It's a strong meme too. By its mocking nature it is difficult to criticize the messages of ironic media without appearing to not understand it. Irony encourages others to respond ironically in turn.
There are certainly benefits to anonymous spaces, but discussing them without their downsides is dishonest. When communities reject truth and replace it insincerity, its members become unable to support one another, and negative and shocking speech become both powerful and regular. Users with no prior bad intentions become used to seeing repugnant ideas and symbols posted in jest which makes it more likely that they won’t bat an eye when similar ideas and symbols are presented to them without mockery.
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