 | |
| Author | Angela Nagle |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Subject | Internet culture,alt-right,political correctness |
| Genre | Cultural studies |
| Publisher | Zero Books |
Publication date | 2017 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Pages | 136 pp. |
| ISBN | 978-1-78-535543-1 |
Kill All Normies: Online Culture Wars from 4chan and Tumblr to Trump and the Alt-Right is a 2017 non-fiction book byAngela Nagle published byZero Books. It describes the development ofinternet culture, the nature ofpolitical correctness, the emergence of thealt-right and the2016 election of Donald Trump.[1][2] Nagle offers a left-wing critique of contemporarysocial liberalism, arguing that it helped create the alt-right movement.
Nagle presents her work as an attempt to map the onlineculture wars that occurred in the early 2010s and how it resulted in the development ofalt-right which played a major role in the election of Donald Trump. Nagle introduces the 2010s as a period in which "cyber utopianism" began to emerge with the rise of internet-based social activism such as theArab Spring,Occupy movement,WikiLeaks,adbusters, andAnonymous which were based on decentralized leadership and online organization. This internet-based activism was immediately embraced by much of mainstreamliberalism without any rigorous analysis or appraisal of the organizational structure and limitations of these internet-based movements, which all resulted in consistent failure and eventual collapse. Many of these movements began on image-based online forums such as4chan and8chan. These forums, organized on the basis ofanonymity, developed a subculture among the users that combined extremely transgressive and dark humor with a deeplymisogynistic andracist attitude.
In the second chapter, titled "The Online Politics of Transgression", Nagle observes how political transgression historically is associated with the political Left, specifically that of theNew Left, which was adopted by theAlt-Right. Nagle frames this adoption of transgression by the political right in relation to the concept ofmoral transgression, which can be traced to the eighteenth century figures ofMarquis De Sade,The Surrealists,Friedrich Nietzsche,Punk subculture, and contemporaneously in the 1990s 'male rampage films' likeAmerican Psycho andFight Club. This 'transgressive anti-moral style' of the Alt-Right, according to Nagle, is their attempt to completely break away from theegalitarian philosophy of the Left and theChristian morality of the Right.
In chapter three, "Gramscians of the Alt-Lite", Nagle focuses on the popularity of theFrench New Right within the circles of the Alt-Right.
Kill All Normies received a polarized reception from critics and columnists, withVice,[3]New York,[4] andThe New Republic[5] publishing positive reviews of the book, whereas outlets such asThe Daily Beast,Libcom,CounterPunch, andThe New Socialist criticized Nagle's description of campus activism.[6] A review inThe Daily Beast said the book was plagued by "sloppy sourcing",[7] noting an allegation that parts of the book had beenplagiarized.[7][8] Nagle and her publisher both rejected the accusations.[9][10] In his review,Red Wedge Magazine co-author accused Nagle of failing to understand the countercultures she writes about, claiming that she portrays alt-right groups on 4chan and social justice communities on Tumblr as being equally violent. Nagle called the review "hilarious" in an interview with Zero Books.[11]
ColumnistRoss Douthat of theNew York Times praised Nagle's "portrait of the online cultural war",[12] and theTimes columnistMichelle Goldberg said thatKill All Normies had "captured this phenomenon".[13] NovelistGeorge Saunders listedKill All Normies as one of his ten favorite books helping him through the "current political moment".[14]
An episode of the Fusion Networks' TV seriesTrumpland directed byLeighton Woodhouse was based on the book.[15] A Spanish edition was published in May 2018 by Orciny Press,[16] and a German edition in September 2018 by Transcript.[17]
