Evil and Banality

As I am sure you have been, I have been following, appalled, the news of the mass shooting at two Christchurch, New Zealand mosques that resulted in the deaths of 49 innocent individuals. Much of the coverage post-attack, has concentrated on the manifesto that the terrorist posted online, that odd blend of actual right-wing conspiracy, 'dank memes', and red herrings that is the hallmark of 'chan' culture. The manifesto was calculated to baffle.

The thing that strikes me is that this is the first 'Gamergate/4Chan/8Chan' mass shooting... it was announced on 8chan, livestreamed like a 'Call of Duty' tournament, and accompanied by a hard-to-penetrate metanarrative meant to obscure what is pretty much a bog-standard white supremacist campaign of terror. It's the metastasis of the path of radicalization of many alt-righties... 'ironic' 4chan racism and misogyny leads to earnest racism and then action, which most of them keep limited to putting up racist flyers in multicultural neighborhoods and an occasional street brawl. Predictably, the very right-wingers who push the 'invasion' narrative which helped to radicalize the shooter are backpedaling as quickly as they can, with a lot of them pushing the idea that talking about the shooter's radicalization is somehow 'what the shooter wants'. Weird, I didn't hear any of them questioning media outlets' attempts to suss out the radicalization of Western-born people who ran off and joined ISIS.

The important thing here is that forty-nine people are dead, and forty-eight more people grievously injured. This sort of tragedy is unprecedented in New Zealand, which is the home of several of my bloggerhood friends. To the people of New Zealand, Kia Kaha.