What is the “lite” in “alt-lite?” The discourse of white vulnerability and dominance among YouTube’s reactionaries

Abstract

This article examines the discourse of “alt-lite” YouTube personalities in a North American context, with a focus on how whiteness is understood and represented. It argues that, despite their self-presentation as color-blind conservatives, these figures are firmly embedded within white supremacist ideology. A qualitative approach to content analysis is adopted to excavate the logics underlying these videos and to highlight the rhetorical tools at work. By framing themselves as the vulnerable targets of progressive movements, “alt-lite” personalities have helped to revive and legitimize a discourse of white victimhood. Their videos emphasize the historic dominance of “white culture” while bemoaning the current and future vulnerability of white people in a politically correct, social-justice-oriented world. Ultimately, the article argues that “alt-lite” figures are united by a set of mitigating rhetorical strategies, which are used to temper and obfuscate their reactionary views. These strategies include performatively aligning with one minority group to denigrate another; highlighting personal relationships with non-white people and knowledge of non-white cultures; embracing a color-blind worldview purportedly rooted in the civil rights movement; and maintaining ironic distance when espousing more overtly hateful racial stereotypes. The adoption of these strategies by right-wing micro-celebrities should not deter scholars and civil society groups from acknowledging when those same figures traffic in white supremacist rhetoric.

Countering Domestic Racially and Ethnically Motivated Violent Terrorism on Social Media: Introducing the Racist and Violent Extremist Flock Tool

“…Some alt-lite groups have participated in acts of racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism, often based on anti-Black Lives Matter (BLM), anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic, or anti-immigrant platforms, while some alt-lite groups have participated in other forms of domestic terrorism (ADL, 2017b). Further, racially and ethnically heterogenous REMVE actors were significant for this study because they might use different or more-coded language than traditional white supremacist groups use (Ma, 2021).…”

“…Per our review of the relevant literature from such entities as ADL, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), academic journals, and news reports, we identified REMVE groups proclaiming a colorblind ideology to include the Proud Boys, Patriot Prayer, the Oath Keepers, and the Fraternal Order of Alt-Knights. Common terms used on social media that differ from those in traditional alt-right and whitesupremacist groups included western chauvinism, corporate globalist left, Judeo-Christian values, race-baiters, MLK (presumably for Martin Luther King, Jr.), manosphere, venerate the housewife, west is the best, RWDS, and Pinochet did nothing wrong (see ADL, 2017b; Center for Extremism, 2018; Coaston, 2020;Gupta, 2018;Hermann, 2020;Ma, 2021;McQueen, 2021;Miller, 2018;Ngangura, 2021;Southern Poverty Law Center, undated;Trouillard, 2021; and "Understanding Multiracial Whiteness and Trump Supporters," 2021). To ensure equity of analysis and avoid bias, we included several of these terms (manosphere, western chauvinism, venerate the housewife, RWDS, and Pinochet was right) in our analysis on term emergence discussed in Chapter Three and intend to include terms from more-diverse REMVE actors in our validation of the RVE-Flock tool going forward.…”

The Internet’s Town Square? A Critical Discourse Analysis of Parler’s “Past Imaginary”

“…As Hartzell (2018) argues, Spencer’s website focused on “arguing for the importance of embracing pro-white racial consciousness” (p. 19). Building on the legacy of white supremacist organizing throughout the 20th century, the “alt-right” embraces a “victim ideology” that frames advancements won by Black people, and other people of color, as discriminatory attacks on the rights of white Americans (Berbrier, 2000; Ma, 2021). They also claim, baselessly, that the white race itself is endangered due to low white birth-rates, miscegenation laws, and high rates of non-white immigration.…”

“…The connections between networked online communication and far-right organizing have been the subject of considerable scholarship over the past two decades (Daniels, 2009;Donovan, 2019;Munn, 2019;Phillips, 2015;Whine, 2003). This research has shown how white supremacist and other reactionary groups have adopted new technologies "to amplify, monetize, and mask their ideologies" (Ma, 2021; see also Ganesh, 2020;Massanari, 2017). In this way, white supremacists act as "innovation opportunists," who exploit platform affordances, legislative loopholes, and moderation blind spots to advance their ideological goals (Daniels, 2018).…”

“…While many self-identified members of the US “alt-right” explicitly endorse the goal of building a white ethno-state, the term has also been used in journalistic and scholarly accounts to describe a broader swathe of reactionary actors online. Some of the less extreme personalities in this fractious coalition have been deemed “alt-lite”: a pejorative term coined by “alt-right” figures to refer to those who broadly align with their ideology but do not openly advocate for white nationalism (Ma, 2021). These “alt-lite” figures on social media leverage race in different ways, utilizing “mitigating rhetorical strategies” crafted to “temper and obfuscate their reactionary views.” Common tactics include claiming a “color-blind” worldview and “maintaining an ironic distance” from more explicitly hateful claims, all the while remaining “firmly entrenched in white supremacist ideology” (Ma, 2021, p. 1, 13).…”