Kill All Normies cover art

Kill All Normies

Online Culture Wars from 4Chan and Tumblr to Trump and the Alt-Right

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Kill All Normies

By: Angela Nagle
Narrated by: Mary Sarah
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About this listen

Recent years have seen a revival of the heated culture wars of the 1990s, but this time its battleground is the Internet. On one side the alt-right ranges from the once obscure neo-reactionary and white separatist movements, to geeky subcultures like 4chan, to more mainstream manifestations such as the Trump-supporting gay libertarian Milo Yiannopolous.

On the other side, a culture of struggle sessions and virtue signaling lurks behind a therapeutic language of trigger warnings and safe spaces. The feminist side of the online culture wars has its equally geeky subcultures right through to its mainstream expression.

Kill All Normies explores some of the cultural genealogies and past parallels of these styles and subcultures, drawing from transgressive styles of 60s libertinism and conservative movements, to make the case for a rejection of the perpetual cultural turn.

©2017 Angela Nagle (P)2017 Tantor Anthropology Content Creation & Social Media Elections & Political Process Politics & Government Social Media Social Sciences Liberalism Social justice Socialism Geeky Technology Climate Wars
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What made the experience of listening to Kill All Normies the most enjoyable?

Nagle delved into some interesting topics in a way that proved she actually knew what she was talking about. I grew up on 4chan, tumblr and other internet hellholes. She's not writing as many outsiders to the world do.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Kill All Normies?

A few references she made to other texts sent me down rabbit holes; Fisher, Haidt and a few others.

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

Some moments of the reading were a little jarring - not sure if that was down to the editing or not.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

As someone who I'd assumed to be firmly on the left, she slams the online left. It was good to reflect on some of these ideals held by my peers.

Enjoyable and thought provoking

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Brilliant analysis of the causes and consequences of the 21st C culture wars. Identifies the deleterious development of identity politics on the Left and it’s even darker shadow on the Right, with new and extreme forms of misogyny and racism (evident in alt-Right figures such as Milo Yianopolis and Richard Spencer). Defines this as a consequence of neoliberalism, isolation, modernity and the rise of the Internet and social media producing new forms of political polarisation and anomie. Examines how alt-Right figures and their legions on 4Chan use irony, cruelty and extreme forms of digital harassment to mock liberal sensibilities and bully Left women and girls in particular (although she defines the killing of Harambe case as paradigmatic of the narrative structure of alt-Right meme culture). Also examines the roots of this in a new culture of victimhood on the Left, especially evident on sites such as Tumblr. Nagle examines how the Left have abandoned the working class and political-economic critique in favour of identity politics and virtue signalling. Examines how increasingly niche gender identities and the cult of victimhood have moved from the margins to the centre of Left discourse thereby alienating most people, especially the working class. Similarly, and brilliantly, identifies the death of classical (Burkean) conservatism in the alt-Right. Calls for a return to political-economic analysis on the Left and a revived moral core.

Acute analysis

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Fascinating yet deeply disturbing. My only criticism is that there weren’t any interviews. But otherwise incredibly insightful, balanced, and informative.

Fascinating

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I ended up returning this book. The ideas were interesting but the narrator’s speed and cadence seemed wrong. This made it hard to follow and understand the concepts. I was unable to listen to it.

Narration did not suit

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