Tenured Radical reviewed Culture Warlords by Talia Lavin
Review of 'Culture Warlords' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
Troubling and compelling.
Hardcover, 288 pages
Published Oct. 13, 2020 by Hachette Books.
5 stars
(3 reviews)
One reporter takes an immersive dive into white supremacy's explosive online presence, exploring the undercurrents of propaganda, racism, misogyny, and history that led us to where we are now.
Talia Lavin is every skinhead's worst nightmare: a loud and unapologetic Jewish woman, acerbic, smart, and profoundly antiracist, with the investigative chops to expose the tactics and ideologies of online hatemongers.
Culture Warlords is the story of how Lavin, a frequent target of extremist trolls (including those at Fox News), dove into a byzantine online culture of hate and learned the intricacies of how white supremacy proliferates online. Within these pages, she reveals the extremists hiding in plain sight online: Incels. White nationalists. White supremacists. National Socialists. Proud Boys. Christian extremists. In order to showcase them in their natural habitat, Talia assumes a range of identities, going undercover as a blonde Nazi babe, a forlorn incel, and a violent Aryan femme …
One reporter takes an immersive dive into white supremacy's explosive online presence, exploring the undercurrents of propaganda, racism, misogyny, and history that led us to where we are now.
Talia Lavin is every skinhead's worst nightmare: a loud and unapologetic Jewish woman, acerbic, smart, and profoundly antiracist, with the investigative chops to expose the tactics and ideologies of online hatemongers.
Culture Warlords is the story of how Lavin, a frequent target of extremist trolls (including those at Fox News), dove into a byzantine online culture of hate and learned the intricacies of how white supremacy proliferates online. Within these pages, she reveals the extremists hiding in plain sight online: Incels. White nationalists. White supremacists. National Socialists. Proud Boys. Christian extremists. In order to showcase them in their natural habitat, Talia assumes a range of identities, going undercover as a blonde Nazi babe, a forlorn incel, and a violent Aryan femme fatale. Along the way, she discovers a whites-only dating site geared toward racists looking for love, a disturbing extremist YouTube channel run by a fourteen-year-old girl with over 800,000 followers, the everyday heroes of the antifascist movement, and much more. By combining compelling stories chock-full of catfishing and gate-crashing with her own in-depth, gut-wrenching research, she also turns the lens of anti-Semitism, racism, and white power back on itself in an attempt to dismantle and decimate the online hate movement from within.
Shocking, humorous, and merciless in equal measure, Culture Warlords explores some of the vilest subcultures on the Web-and shows us how we can fight back.
Review of 'Culture Warlords' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
"Sifting through the details and observing the not-stop puerile nature of their speech, it can be easy to wonder what the point of decoding all of this hate is. Isn't it just hate? Aren't these just losers pontificating and arguing on the internet.
The thing about hate though, is that it metastasizes. The thing about channels that are filled 24 hours a day with stochastic violence, testosterone filled megaphones shouting for blood is that sooner or later, someone is going to take them up on it. From Robert Bowers to Anders Breivik to Brenton Tarrant, racist networks have proven over and over again that the steady dissemination of murderous propaganda leaves a trail of blood behind it.
And when that happens, being able to trace, isolate, and identify these ideologies means that racists can hide behind slippery code words or private vocabularies. In identifying their inspirations and their ideological and …
"Sifting through the details and observing the not-stop puerile nature of their speech, it can be easy to wonder what the point of decoding all of this hate is. Isn't it just hate? Aren't these just losers pontificating and arguing on the internet.
The thing about hate though, is that it metastasizes. The thing about channels that are filled 24 hours a day with stochastic violence, testosterone filled megaphones shouting for blood is that sooner or later, someone is going to take them up on it. From Robert Bowers to Anders Breivik to Brenton Tarrant, racist networks have proven over and over again that the steady dissemination of murderous propaganda leaves a trail of blood behind it.
And when that happens, being able to trace, isolate, and identify these ideologies means that racists can hide behind slippery code words or private vocabularies. In identifying their inspirations and their ideological and theological motivations we give them less room to operate in the shadows. We less room to be the mysterious nightmare creatures they so long to be."
Talia Lavin writes beautifully and passionately to protect the people she loves from meaningless violence. Her work decoding white supremacy is worth your time: slpl.bibliocommons.com/item/show/1487029116
