Coraline is pretty intense.

A quote from Neil Gaiman about his editor’s daughter, who served as the book’s first audience

I told her, “You know, we kind of have you to thank for all this, because you weren’t scared by it.” And she said, “Actually, I was terrified. But I wanted to know what happened next. I knew if I let anybody know I was scared, I wouldn’t find out.”

I wonder what they’ll do with those weapons once they’re no longer pawns of the US empire? It’s a shame that this is an entirely new situation and there’s no lessons history could teach us about arming extremist militias.

I may have some idea how to handle this

Because propaganda works

complains about capitalism

Is this communism?

Yes. Any space that is not actively anti-fascist will become fascist.

I was at a shitty crustpunk bar once getting an after-work beer. One of those shitholes where the bartenders clearly hate you. So the bartender and I were ignoring one another when someone sits next to me and he immediately says, “no. get out.”
And the dude next to me says, “hey i’m not doing anything, i’m a paying customer.” and the bartender reaches under the counter for a bat or something and says, “out. now.” and the dude leaves, kind of yelling. And he was dressed in a punk uniform, I noticed
Anyway, I asked what that was about and the bartender was like, “you didn’t see his vest but it was all nazi shit. Iron crosses and stuff. You get to recognize them.”
And i was like, ohok and he continues.
"you have to nip it in the bud immediately. These guys come in and it’s always a nice, polite one. And you serve them because you don’t want to cause a scene. And then they become a regular and after awhile they bring a friend. And that dude is cool too.
And then THEY bring friends and the friends bring friends and they stop being cool and then you realize, oh shit, this is a Nazi bar now. And it’s too late because they’re entrenched and if you try to kick them out, they cause a PROBLEM. So you have to shut them down.
And i was like, ‘oh damn.’ and he said “yeah, you have to ignore their reasonable arguments because their end goal is to be terrible, awful people.”
And then he went back to ignoring me. But I haven’t forgotten that at all.

• Michael B. Tager / iamragesparkle

Honestly though, the direct direct direct answer to your question as phrased, “what caused internet/nerd culture to go full-on fascist [in the mid-2010s]?” is just GamerGate. That’s it. That was kinda the moment that all the right-leaning nerds who hated women that wouldn’t date them realized there were other right-leaning nerds that also hated women, and they very publicly organized around it, formed forums about it, and basically created the modern alt-right.

Before that, like, the loudest nerd voices on the internet were like Wil Wheaton whose core tenet was “Don’t be a dick”, and the loudly anti-copyright Cory Doctorow. They got drowned out by the forces of reaction.

I wouldn’t say that it has? At least not unilaterally.

I’d lay the blame squarely on capital’s doorstep. Capital runs most major internet forums, and capital decides which views are platformed and which are muted. Fascism and capital go hand in hand. Rage gets more clicks, which means more ad revenue.

We’re both on sites loaded with nerds who are comrades. Nerds are not at all inherently fascist. The terminally online are not inherently fascist. However, “Internet/Nerd culture” was doomed to become fascist when it became a packaged commodity. The most successful “nerds” were also the most ruthlessly capitalist. Wozniak vs Jobs and all that.

Inceldom also has a part to play in this, but, again, this is largely a product of capital. They’re useful idiots. Like LBJ put it, “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” Lonely men are convinced women are to blame, that women are garbage, and they become clients and, frankly, weapons. There are a lot of lonely nerds out there thanks to the isolation that capitalism encourages.

You say this change happened in the mid-2010s; putting that in context, social media as we know it really only started taking off in the late oughts. Reddit and Facebook were like 2005-ish, and didn’t hit their strides for a few years. Facebook’s IPO was 2012. Capital.

And, finally, nobody’s immune to propaganda. It’s not just “nerd culture” that’s taken this turn, it’s a society-wide poison.

Yes, we have one party here. But so does America. Except, with typical extravagance, they have two of them!

-Julius Nyerere

Omg they are exactly as cool as I was hoping!

Okay but like if I could actually have a coal powered SUV I would because steam engines are neat as hell. I want a Thomas the tank engine monster truck now.

I identify as an anarkitty, not an anarkiddie.

ADHD+anxiety here, it me

The last one’s not a bomb, it’s a misfired Hamas missile.

Not trying to diagnose you from a paragraph on the internet, but that’s an ADHD symptom. Even if you don’t have it, you’ll find many many folks in the same boat if you look at ADHD forums; and, similarly, lots of coping strategies on ADHD help sites.

100% this. Pure propaganda.

It’s brutal. It also just kind of becomes normal, eventually. Do what you can to protect your hearing going forward to prevent it from getting worse. Good luck.

That’s super rad.