ABSTRACT
It is impossible to understand the Alternative Right without understanding how it operates online. Though the traditional far right has, of course, used the internet as a tool, the Alternative Right’s use of a specific online trolling subculture has allowed it to advance its cultural war and attract a younger audience than most existing far-right movements. Moreover, while the Alternative Right is a movement that brings American groups and European far-right ideas together, it is also partly borne from online spaces, including those which are not ostensibly political. Not only would this online world provide the Alternative Right with a style and means of engaging in harassment of those who it deemed inferior, but its gradually politicised spaces would act as a channel for many towards this nascent movement. To better understand these developments, this chapter explores the history, influence and trajectory of “trolling” subculture’s influence on the Alternative Right.
