ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the emotional dimensions of the social processes of online extremism. Drawing on Randall Collins' interactional framework and the literature on cultural trauma, we examine online extremist communities as emotional refuges within which isolated and alienated individuals may seek comfort. The chapter uses the impact of the 2008 election of Barack Obama as a case study and examines its effects on the Stormfront community. We find that the election caused an unprecedented upsurge of new members of the community. Many of these members experienced the event as traumatic and sought in Stormfront a way to make sense of and process it. The election of a Black President challenged their implicit self-understanding, upsetting the very grounds upon which their identity and self-value rested. Stormfront functioned as a form of a digital therapy group, enabling these members to collectively interpret and verbalize what they felt, articulating the previously implicit white supremacy that had triggered their reaction – thereby shaping an emotionally energized collective with a focused target of collective action.
