Red Pill
Red Pill
Red Pill
Deana A. Rohlinger
We would like to thank Miranda Waggoner and Douglas Schrock for their guidance on this
project, as well as our reviewers for their hard work on improving this article.
1
Hard copies of the data collected for this project (all comments and threads) are available
upon request as PDF files.
2
As Sarah Banet-Weiser and Kate Miltner (2016) note, the alt-right conflates an attack on
particular constructions of masculinity with an attack on maleness.
[Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 2019, vol. 44, no. 3]
© 2019 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0097-9740/2019/4403-0003$10.00
3
For an in-depth look at how feminism became depoliticized and popularized over time,
please see Mendes (2012).
4
See Messner (1998), Futrell and Simi (2004), Jordan (2016), and Salter (2016).
5
“Shit-posting” refers to the practice whereby individuals post negative content in an on-
line forum (spaces primarily used for text-based communication among somewhat anonymous
users) such as Reddit or a social media network (spaces where individuals share a variety of con-
tent and interact with one another using their real identities) such as Twitter. One purpose
of shit-posting is to derail or take over a discussion. Trump’s supporters shit-posted about his
opponents by creating memes and, in some cases, billboards emphasizing their potential weak-
nesses.
6
See Marshall (1985), Ferber (2000), McCammon et al. (2001), Blee (2002), and Sobieraj
(2017).
7
The cultivation of oppositional consciousness and the creation of collective identity are in-
terrelated processes that are difficult to parse out from one another (see Mansbridge and Morris
2001). Consequently, we do not separate them here but focus on how these sometimes mutually
reinforcing processes play out in an online forum. Future scholarship should consider the empir-
ical differences between these processes and how these differences affect political action.
8
We diverge from social scientists in our usage of “gendered opportunities,” which is typ-
ically used to explain when and how women can challenge the male status quo and forward
women’s rights and representation (Beckwith 1996; McCammon et al. 2001).
that the popular feminism championed by celebrities, female CEOs, and cor-
porations undercuts the power base needed to influence social structures and
gender institutions in the ways that they catastrophize (Ferber 2000; Mc-
Robbie 2009). Thus, while men’s rights activists may recognize that they
face certain problems collectively as (white, heterosexual) men, their inabil-
ity to properly identify the source of these problems causes them to mobilize
in ways that are not necessarily rational from a political perspective yet can be
seen as rational when considering the origin of these groups and the hege-
monic nature of their collective identity.
Second, emotion plays an important role in politicization (Polletta and
Jasper 2001; Jasper 2011). Opinion leaders in online forums prey on the
insecurities of participants and use emotions such as fear and anger to induce
political participation (Jasper 2011). For instance, the individuals who are
key to developing oppositional consciousness can effectively use emotion
to frame political moments—or political candidates—as threatening to (or
supportive of ) a cause and a collective identity. Savvy leaders can stoke ad-
herents’ emotions in ways that cast political engagement as an extension
(and obligation) of a collectivity (Benford and Snow 2000).
Third, forum leaders play an important role in the politicization of col-
lective identity insofar as they are charged with convincing adherents that
political engagement will pay off. Of course, in the digital era, leadership
looks quite different than it did in the past. Leaders can establish and exercise
a great deal of control over a forum, or they can allow others to engage in lead-
ing tasks and perform the work of a leader without the title (Earl and Schuss-
man 2004; Earl 2007). Finally, the politicization of collective identity changes a
forum and, consequently, who participates in it, as leaders must strategically
resituate a collective relative to a larger polity—with this process taking the
risk of alienating previous adherents who may feel threatened by the new sta-
tus quo (Gamson 1997; Bernstein 2005; Rohlinger et al. 2015).
In this article, we trace this shift from oppositional consciousness to po-
liticized collective identity through an analysis of identity talk. Social move-
ment scholars understand identity talk as an extension of identity work, which
is an “interactional accomplishment that is socially constructed, interpreted,
and communicated via words, deeds, and images” (Hunt and Benford 1994,
491; see also Snow and McAdam 2000; Blee and Creasap 2010). Commu-
nication, whether it is written, verbal, or symbolic, provides a foundation
for the construction and maintenance of collective identity (Hunt, Benford,
and Snow 1994; Gamson 1997; Snow and McAdam 2000). Identity talk is
an ideal way to track how a collective identity shifts from a personal philoso-
phy to a political mandate. Here, we analyze how the collective identity asso-
ciated with one of the most popular alt-right forums, the Red Pill, became
9
To “sticky” a post is a verb specific to Reddit that makes posts always accessible at the top
of a page.
their special status within the community. In this way, moderators choose
which users they think express Red Pill sentiments appropriately and publicly
reward them for doing so. Moderators also punish those with whom they dis-
agree by deleting their posts, publicly dismissing their points of view, or label-
ing them as trolls and banning them from them forum.
We analyzed two different types of discussion threads on the Red Pill sub-
reddit: Field Reports and Men’s Rights. In Field Reports, users discuss how
they employ a “Red Pill strategy” in real-world situations and seek advice from
other users on how to better act like “alpha” men (these terms are discussed
in detail below). In Men’s Rights threads, users discuss topics concerning the
perceived systematic oppression of men. We focused on these two threads for
three related reasons. First, these threads were the most popular over time.
Threads on Fitness and Science, for example, generated sporadic and limited
conversations among users. Second, given their popularity, these threads al-
lowed us to track points of convergence and divergence among the opinions
of forum users, the role of these (dis)agreements in developing an oppositional
consciousness, and the eventual politicization of the Red Pill collective iden-
tity. Finally, these threads enable us to assess the role of moderators and elite
users in politicization as well as how they responded to those with whom they
did not agree.
We analyzed the four highest community-rated Field Reports and Men’s
Rights posts from October 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016.10 We used the
month of October since it was the first month in which the Red Pill had
both Field Reports and Men’s Rights threads. Table 1 summarizes the topic
post titles, notes who wrote the post (e.g., an elite user, moderator, or reg-
ular user), and lists the number of comments associated with each post. Be-
cause Reddit is a semianonymous forum, it is difficult to say with certainty
who uses a given subreddit. According to a 2016 Pew Research Center survey
(Barthel et al. 2016), 71 percent of Reddit news users are men and 59 percent
are between the ages of 18 and 29. Pew also found that 47 percent of Reddit
users identify as liberal, 39 percent as moderate, and 13 percent as conserva-
tive. The Red Pill skews politically conservative, meaning that forum users
consistently post alt-right content. Trevor Martin (2017), for instance, found
that the Red Pill shares many of its users with the pro-Trump forum The
Donald. This suggests that, at least on Reddit, there is a continuous exchange
of conservative commentary between forums dedicated to mainstream Re-
publican politics and alt-right meeting grounds. As discussed above, the strict
regulation of the forum by users and moderators alike allows us to be almost
10
We used the website Reddit Time Machine to determine the most popular posts from
October each year.
Number of
Topic Posts Post Creator and Comments
by Year Title Community Status Karma on Post
2013:
Field report What Bodybuilding Taught GayLubeOil (elite user) 125 89
Me about Cultural Marx-
ism
Men’s rights Fewer Men Graduate Col- Bsutansalt (moderator) 153 90
lege: Obama Says It’s a
“Great Accomplishment”
2014:
Field report Dread Game in Action Summertime_Dimes 314 100
(regular user)
Men’s rights TIL Just Deleted a Post Aerobus (moderator) 1,217 219
about Male Victims of
Domestic Abuse
2015:
Field report Keep Your Feelings to Your- Pronobis21 (regular 340 148
self, and Especially Away user)
from Women
Men’s rights A Message to Men’s Rights GayLubeOil (elite user) 605 375
from Red Pill
2016:
Field report Going to an Event Where Bulk_king11 1,041 123
You Don’t Know Anyone (regular user)
Men’s rights “Sexual Assault” Is Why Redpillschool 971 618
I’m Endorsing Donald (moderator)
Trump for President of
the United States
certain that the commenters in our sample are men who are interested in the
Red Pill, and not trolls looking to disrupt the forum’s normal operations.11
We used inductive content analysis to analyze the 1,762 comments made
by forum participants. Inductive content analysis refers to the use of an open-
ended coding scheme to sort data into distinct analytical categories (Cho and
Lee 2014). For example, if a user bragged about recent sexual exploits in
a comment while also stating that such exploits proved their alpha status,
we would label that comment as discussing Sexual Virility and Alpha Status.
This process enabled us to quantify important categories of discourse (such as
11
There is, however, a forum for Red Pill Women, where women can discuss how to sup-
port their alpha men and live a Red Pill lifestyle.
12
Quantitative content analysis also was used to count the presence of different frames over
time. While it is beyond the scope of this article to present these results, these counts were used
to confirm the Red Pill’s transformation.
13
Given the offensive nature of posts on the Red Pill regarding the sexual exploitation and
humiliation of women, we limit our examples in this section.
Derogatory slurs were not the only way in which men recast the world
through the patriarchal lens of the Red Pill sexual strategy. In their conver-
sations, adherents routinely cast women as sexual playthings that men could
(and should) use to demonstrate their masculine superiority. When all women
are “sluts” or “plates,” it is in the Red Pill man’s best interest to use them for
their only purpose (sex) and discard them when they are no longer useful.
A highly rated comment on the 2014 Field Report demonstrates this view:
“One of my most memorable nights/weeks of sex happened after I told a
plate I’d be getting a drink with a woman I’d known in high school. Plate
begged me to come to her place afterwards, ‘no matter how late.’ I stumbled
in at 2am. . . . She did one of those fake yawns, ‘oh, did you have fun?’ I pro-
ceed to fuck the holy shit out of her. The next morning I went back to my
place and banged the high school friend, who I’d yet to inform the plate
was staying at my place” (10/2/2014). In the 2016 Field Report, users dis-
cussed how to seduce women at social events, and one user offered this pop-
ular comment: “And weddings are high anxiety events for women because it
reminds them that they are failing in life and still riding the Cock Carousel
without a man as a rock for her (unmarried girls freak out . . . feeling the Wall
approaching). So exploit female anxiety (wedding) and amplify your freedom
(I Don’t Give a Fuck) and the odds are you come out a winner” (Neore-
actionSafe, 10/4/2016). In short, Red Pill men agreed that women were
a (sexual) enemy, and a sexual strategy was needed to survive the “war on
men.” What is disturbing about this oppositional consciousness is that Red
Pill men equate the sexual exploitation and humiliation of women with a
blow to feminism and a successful performance of an “alpha” masculine iden-
tity (discussed below). We do not think this is coincidental given the historical
links of masculine performance to physical and sexual violence.
The second key way in which Red Pill men constructed their collective
identity was through discussions of their transformation from weak beta
men to strong, virile alpha men. This transformation reflects men’s accep-
tance of a collective identity that rejects gender equity and all those in favor
of it. Such stories rely heavily on details of men’s sexual exploits, demonstrat-
ing that they have moved from being betas, who are subservient to wives and
girlfriends, to alphas, who hook up with multiple sexual partners without ro-
mantic commitment, control women through emotional manipulation, and
possess a (predominantly sexual) agentic self. These narratives are interest-
ing because they utilize neoliberal ideologies to strengthen the collective iden-
tity of adherents (Jasper 1998; Polletta 1998). Power is achieved through in-
dependence, and such independence relies on neoliberal norms of success in
which individuals must stand on their own merit and personal improvement
can be achieved through correct consumption habits (Harvey 2005). In this
case, men consume the advice of other users, a variety of protein supplements,
and a steady gym membership.
The transformation from beta to alpha is difficult, and Red Pill users uti-
lized forum conversations as a support system throughout their journey of
self-improvement. In the 2013 Field Report, elite user GayLubeOil rallied
Red Pill men by arguing that men must not be afraid to selfishly take what
they want, noting, “Women and betas always stand in the way of greatness.
They love mediocrity. . . . If you want to be the best, then you’re going to
have to do whatever it takes to get there . . . even if it makes women uncom-
fortable” (10/28/2013). In the world of the Red Pill, men are at the mercy
of a state that does not care for their existence and must therefore use any
means necessary to achieve personal happiness. These efforts are a backlash
to more gender-neutral state policies (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005),
with Red Pill men seeking not only to reclaim traditional masculinity but also
to transform modern understandings of gender to suit their own needs. The
achievement of alpha status thus reflects one’s complete embodiment of neo-
liberal masculine norms, with personal fulfillment being far more valuable
than group welfare.
To further establish themselves as a unique collective, Red Pill users dis-
tanced the forum from traditional men’s rights groups, which were regarded
as both insufficiently critical of feminism and too focused on political action.
Users often framed these groups as inferior to the Red Pill because they em-
braced ideas of gender equity in their pursuit of political goals (such as fa-
thers’ rights and alimony reform) instead of focusing on personal improve-
ment. Over time, Red Pillers began to label traditional men’s rights groups as
“the male equivalent of feminism” (Sadpanda596, Men’s Rights, 10/19/
2015). A highly praised comment demonstrates this view: “I frequent the
MensRights subreddit and sadly it has devolved into one giant circle jerk
complaining about female child molesters and shit feminists say on Facebook.
Too often they’re trying to win the ‘oppression Olympics’ against third wave
feminists and in doing so they’re actually emasculating men and turning them
into women. I think there are a lot of men’s issues that need to be addressed
(e.g. male suicide, biased divorce courts, etc.), but doing from the same
worldview as feminism is a fool’s game because nobody is going to care about
male ‘oppression’ ” (jb_trp, 10/19/2015, Men’s Rights 2015). Red Pill elite
“GayLubeOil,” who wrote the 2015 Men’s Rights post, offered this com-
ment on the aptitude of traditional men’s rights activists:
So to all of the men’s rights activists that got trolled into reading this
article, do us all a favor and stop being a chubster, speak with confi-
dence and for the love of pregnant Men’s Rights Activist Jesus go lift.
Your body is the message. The sooner you start taking your appearance
seriously the sooner you will be taken seriously. Who knows maybe
you guys can help make marriage a viable institution again or bring
back free speech to university campuses. We The Red Pill are standing
right behind you, getting our dicks sucked by insecure sorority girls
and calling you fat. (“GayLubeOil,” Men’s Rights, 10/19/2015)
The Red Pill was often likened to a club of elite men who had figured out
how to beat their competition in the masculinity game, and to these men,
political action was futile in comparison to personal improvement and sexual
conquest. This understanding of the Red Pill as a personal philosophy that
needs to be hidden from the broader public in part reflects the concern of
stigmatization. White supremacists, for instance, often hide their affiliation
with hateful communities to protect themselves from criticism (Blee 2002).
However, this understanding also allowed forum users to emphasize their
personal transformations from beta to alpha men in a safe space, in a twisted
inversion of feminist safe spaces that promise protection and empowerment
for users (Clark-Parson 2017).
In sum, Red Pill men utilized their oppositional consciousness to redefine
understandings of manhood and patriarchal authority. Users engaged with
the forum to create a philosophy of sexual strategy that cultivated the Red
Pill collective identity as a pro-male force against feminism and its propo-
nents, while rejecting political mobilization. Moderators and elite users ar-
gued that the political action of traditional men’s rights groups was less ful-
filling than the goal of personal improvement, and the community agreed.
The satisfaction of Red Pill men was far more important than welfare of all
men. This sentiment would change as Trump ascended within the Republi-
can Party. Elite users utilized Trump’s platform, and their clout in the forum,
to push the community toward mainstream political engagement.
ous blow against feminism (Simon and Klandermans 2001; Simon and
Grabow 2010).
To do so, moderators and elite users had to move adherents beyond a
focus on feminism, and their personal opposition to it, and contextualize
the importance of political action through voting. They did this by framing
the presidential election in the context of a political “war on men,” specifi-
cally focusing on the threat Clinton posed to the Red Pill community and
exalting Trump as an alpha male who would fight for men’s political fortune.
Forum leaders were careful to link political action to the Red Pill’s sexual
strategy and to argue that the 2016 presidential election represented a unique
opportunity to forward the forum’s ideological agenda.
Moderators and elite users pitted Clinton and Trump against each other
ideologically and argued that Clinton would exacerbate the war on men. The
top Men’s Right’s post of October 2016, titled “‘Sexual Assault’ Is Why
I’m Endorsing Donald Trump for President of the United States,” was cre-
ated as a call to action against this political development. In this post, mod-
erator “redpillschool” explains that this war on men “is not abating as many
have suggested over the last few years. It’s growing, and it’s growing out of
control.” He takes care to note that while the forum is normally “politics neu-
tral,” the 2016 election represents a key political opportunity for Red Pill
users, one that could make or break their ability to push back against femi-
nism. He explains: “This election season we’re not going to be able to put
up any walls between sexual strategy and politics, because the outcomes from
these candidates are directly tied to the very cultural influences and trends
we’ve been discussing here for the past few years. They’re tied to sexual strat-
egy. . . . Our presidential candidates are representing a system set up to in-
creasingly damage the lives of men (and promote the choices, advantages,
and positive outcomes for women) and those alienated by this system, respec-
tively” (“redpillschool,” Men’s Rights, 10/14/2016). Hillary Clinton, in
short, was the avatar of a feminist, antimale establishment.
Redpillschool’s call to action received immediate positive attention from
the community and notably from other elite users. Another moderator, “bsu-
tansalt,” quickly “stickied” a reply to the post, in which he agreed with red-
pillschool and offered additional reasons why Red Pill men should vote for
Trump. Bsutansalt linked to a video made by Trump campaign associate Da-
vid Clarke, in which Clarke criticized an oppressive “leftist media” for being
afraid of the Trump campaign’s violent rhetoric. Bsutansalt argued that this
message was one that Red Pillers “need to see at least once in their lives,” im-
plying that the “leftists” that Clarke mentioned were also enemies of the Red
Pill. Bsutansalt further suggested that Trump personified their sexual strat-
egy, noting: “Young HOT women LOVE The Donald, but it’s the older,
jaded, washed up feminist types who seem to have a problem. Think about
why that is for a moment . . . you’ll see exactly why this is TRP-related”
(“redpillschool,” Men’s Rights, 10/14/2016). Bsutansalt was not the only
elite to speak on Trump’s behalf. GayLubeOil, the elite user who had argued
against political action just a year earlier, also pushed Red Pill men to vote
Trump and argued with users who would not endorse him.
Most Red Pill men posting on the forum were easily politicized. Forum
users described a Hillary Clinton presidency as cataclysmically emasculating
insofar as it would irreversibly entrench feminism into American politics. This
prospect inspired anger and fear among Red Pill users, with one even arguing
that Hillary’s victory would “give the free card to all women in the nation to
be complete deplorable corrupt whores” (“VitaminPower,” Men’s Rights,
10/14/2016). Among these users, political support for Trump was a natural
extension of the Red Pill personal philosophy. As “ECoast_Man” noted: “I
would actually argue that it is incompatible to adhere to the Red Pill and sup-
port Hillary Clinton’s bid for presidency. You can not support Trump but
there is no way to be a Hillary Rodham Clinton supporter. RedPillSchool
is absolutely right to bring this up, we’ve been talking about this here for
years” (Men’s Rights, 10/14/2016). Another user argued that men would
live in fear if Trump lost the election: “RedPillSchool is exactly right. They
[the media] are trying to make what Trump said/did into ‘sexual assault.’
If they succeed then no man will be safe anywhere, anytime. There will be par-
alyzing fear in all men at the mere thought of approaching a woman. Only
true ‘Alphas’ will have the confidence to approach women and it won’t mat-
ter. They can be brought down decades later if they were too forward or if
they talked trash on a blog” (“Bluepillprofessor,” Men’s Rights, 10/14/
2016). In short, the sexual strategy of the Red Pill served as a foundation
for politicizing the collective identity of forum users, with elite users trans-
forming this oppositional consciousness into a political stance. As one user
summarized, “This war on masculinity has gone on for far too long, and our
only hope of stopping it right now is Donald Trump” (“Oxykitten80mg,”
Men’s Rights, 10/14/2016).
It is important to underscore that the Red Pill’s political pivot was con-
tentious, with some users challenging this new commitment to politics and
Trump. One highly rated comment derided pro-Trump users, stating: “Y’all
falling for the cult of personality. Dumb fucks” (“Darkwoodz,” Men’s Rights,
10/14/2016). Another user agreed, commenting: “[Trump’s] not a Red Pill
hero. He’s an idiot, he’s a sexual pervert, he has huge insecurities, and is as
eloquent as a bag of dog shit. Oh, and he’s known for being a deal maker
his entire life. Lol he IS the system. Stop confusing being stupid for being al-
pha” (“logicalthinker1,” Men’s Rights, 10/14/2016).
For some, Trump did not adequately represent Red Pill ideology and was
simply another representation of the political establishment that would hurt
the Red Pill. These challenges were largely unsuccessful. The most popular
anti-Trump comment received less than half the karma than the most pop-
ular pro-Trump comment received, and most anti-Trump comment threads
had very low comment scores. Trump haters were publicly called out and la-
beled as “shills” for pro-Hillary public relations firms and, in some cases, had
their alpha male status questioned. The implication here is that anti-Trump
sentiment could never come from a true Red Pill man and that any push
against politicization came from outside the forum. Forum leaders redrew
the boundaries regarding who did—and did not—constitute legitimate mem-
bers of the forum to encourage users to fall in line with the new political focus
(Gamson 1997; Bernstein 2005; Rohlinger and Bunnage 2017).
Many pro-Trump users explicitly linked Trump’s masculinity performances
to the alpha identity, with his financial and sexual prowess making him em-
blematic of Red Pill manhood. As a popular comment stated: “Trump might
be one of our last hopes to overthrow the current system and banish the liars
forever. More importantly he’s the embodiment of everything masculine.
Trump becoming president in the United States means the West will eventu-
ally reflect him. We are taking our manhood back. No more slaves. Freedom
for all” (“PantsonFire1234,” Men’s Rights, 10/14/2016). Another user de-
scribed Trump’s embodiment of Red Pill values: “[The media] criticizing
him for being a billionaire womanizer is just absurd. I would be shocked
and a bit concerned if he didn’t use his status in society on women (who, let’s
be honest, were probably all over him when this ‘assault’ happened). Trump
embodies Red Pill thinking into every fiber of his being. It’s important that
we support him” (“redpillnexus,” Men’s Rights, 10/14/2016). As Red Pill
followers long for “traditional masculinity” that prides men on sexual prow-
ess, physical aggression, and economic success, Trump’s “true man” persona
makes him emblematic of Red Pill ideals. Attacks on Trump were thus criti-
cisms of the Red Pill identity, and these attacks were attributed to feminists
and the “leftist media,” further aligning the Red Pill community with Trump
through their common enemies. It did not hurt that Trump’s idealization
of himself as a self-made entrepreneur closely fits with neoliberal idealizations
of success, which further convinced Red Pill adherents that Trump was the
kind of alpha who would whip America into shape.
In sum, elites politicized the Red Pill identity by linking community ideals
of neoliberal alpha masculinity to Trump’s public image as a powerful, inde-
pendent deal maker and then framed the electoral conflict as one between
alpha masculinity and the “feminist establishment.” Elite users then pushed
adherents to engage in anonymous political action—voting for a Red Pill
savior. The gendered philosophy of sexual strategy was merged with the gen-
dered political action of voting for an aggressively misogynistic and tradi-
tionally masculine candidate. Trump’s rapid ascension allowed the Red Pill
to produce change in accordance with the concept of gendered opportunity
structures (McCammon et al. 2001). Trump’s polarizing effect on the polit-
ical environment, in that he caused hypermasculinity, blatant misogyny, and
violent tough talk to resurge in popularity on the national stage, provided the
perfect opportunity for Red Pill men to combat feminism through political
action. When users attempted to resist this politicization, their credentials as
true Red Pill men were diminished by elite users. With Hillary supporters de-
scribed as betas, the only action suitable for alphas was to vote for Donald
Trump, who, in the eyes of many users, would make America manly again.
There is good news and bad news for feminist scholars. The good news is
that while the Red Pill became politically engaged after years of disengage-
ment, the ability of elite users to use the forum for continued collective ac-
tion appears to be limited. As far as we know, users were simply encouraged
to support Trump, and those who had doubts about him were persuaded by
the community to be on their side. Users were not compelled to engage in
any other political action—not even routine actions such as donating money
to Trump’s campaign, phone banking, or political canvassing. While Red Pill
men may have engaged in these actions on their own and not revealed them
to the forum, the initial conceptualization of the Red Pill as a personal phi-
losophy limits how this collective identity can be used to foster political en-
gagement, and public stigmatization hampers what forum elites can ask ad-
herents to do, especially through the constraints of a semianonymous online
forum. In other words, politicization of the Red Pill identity seems to be
short lived, and it is unlikely that many men will wish to publicly identify with
the misogyny expressed in this forum, even in the wake of Trump’s victory.
The bad news is that even though this politicization was short lived, it was
effective (Martin 2017). While the politicization of the forum was contested,
moderators and elite users were able to quell dissent and link the Red Pill
identity with voting for Trump. This clearly demonstrates that these extreme
online enclaves can be dominated by a few powerful voices, which can help
candidates holding distasteful views to get elected. While we do not wish to
argue that the Red Pill’s mobilization was the tipping point for Trump’s elec-
toral success, we present this data to illustrate generalized processes of mo-
bilization that may have occurred across the Internet in the buildup to the
2016 election. This has implications for further studies of semianonymous
online spaces that rely on community voting to determine user experiences
and, unfortunately for feminists, indicates that extreme misogynistic dis-
course can successfully create political action in the modern age.
It remains to be seen how the Red Pill community will continue to engage
with American politics. Their success could arguably have a stifling effect
on future involvement, as some users may see the “war on men” abate with
Trump as president. Demobilization in the wake of victory is common in so-
cial movements (Rohlinger 2015). However, it is possible that this success
has drawn in enough new adherents, ones who are willing to be extreme and
push back against “political correctness” publicly. This is particularly true given
Trump’s public support for white nationalists and affiliations with alt-right
sweethearts such as Stephen Bannon. The growth of the community in the
wake of Trump’s political ascendance—as well as the development of smaller
affiliated subreddits such as Red Pill Right (an explicitly alt-right political
space for Red Pill users), Red Pill Women, and Red Pill Parenting—suggests
that the willingness of citizens to act on misogynistic philosophies is growing.
The Red Pill could function as a politically awakened network of alt-right ac-
tivism. Feminists should monitor the development of these new communi-
ties, how they interact with other alt-right spaces, and how community in-
volvement fosters an alt-right collective identity and lifestyle. It is possible
that a lack of knowledge about the alt-right’s dark corner of the Internet
has blinded scholars to the current demographics of the of US polity, primar-
ily the influence of its angry young white men. It is too easy to write off these
men as Internet trolls who are unwilling to engage with the real world. But on
November 8, 2016, they made their political agenda known, and they will
undoubtedly attempt to do so again.
Feminist groups should be alarmed at this rapidly growing alt-right online
presence and need to find ways to undermine these extreme communities.
It is likely that a shadow network (Frickel, Torcasso, and Anderson 2015)
of alt-right activism exists between various Reddit forums and other extrem-
ist political spaces, such as StormFront, segments of 4chan, and online fo-
rums unknown to scholars. If this is true, elite users on one forum can utilize
their capital within multiple online spaces, bolstering the global Right’s or-
ganizational capabilities. We must focus on the mechanisms through which
communities like the Red Pill create political engagement, such as using emo-
tional identity talk, relying on charismatic leaders, and developing personal
philosophies that can be linked to collective action. Understanding these pro-
cesses will help us combat (and hopefully prevent) the election of the next mi-
sogynistic populist.
Additionally, as feminists, we must address the social and political processes
that allowed these hateful communities to crawl out of the shadows. Our in-
fluence in modern political institutions is already waning, as we further tran-
sition into a postfeminist culture where feminist concerns and politics are
considered unnecessary and even harmful to women’s success (Taylor
1989; Hall and Rodriguez 2003; Staggenborg and Taylor 2005). This is re-
flected in an increasingly vile and misogynistic Internet culture in which
women are attacked for merely existing (Jane 2014, 2016; Sobieraj 2017).
We must ensure that these communities do not dominate online discussions,
and we must halt the tide of postfeminist discourse. The Women’s March
demonstrated that feminists are not alone in this fight against extremism. It
is critical for us to find ways to create our own networks and reproduce this
success online.
Department of Sociology
Florida State University
References
Earl, Jennifer. 2007. “Leading Tasks in a Leaderless Movement: The Case of Stra-
tegic Voting.” American Behavioral Scientist 50(10):1327– 49.
Earl, Jennifer, and Alan Schussman. 2004. “From Barricades to Firewalls? Strategic
Voting and Social Movement Leadership in the Internet Age.” Sociological In-
quiry 74(4):439–63.
Faludi, Susan. 1991. Backlash: The Undeclared War against Women. New York: Crown.
Ferber, Abby L. 2000. “Racial Warriors and Weekend Warriors: The Construction
of Masculinity in Mythopoetic and White Supremacist Discourse.” Men and
Masculinities 3(1):30–56.
Frickel, Scott, Rebekah Torcasso, and Annika Anderson. 2015. “The Organization
of Expert Activism: Shadow Mobilization in Two Social Movements.” Mobiliza-
tion 21(3):305–23.
Futrell, Robert, and Pete Simi. 2004. “Free Spaces, Collective Identity, and the Per-
sistence of US White Power Activism.” Social Problems 51(1):16– 42.
Gamson, Joshua. 1997. “Messages of Exclusion: Gender, Movements, and Sym-
bolic Boundaries.” Gender & Society 11(2):178–99.
Hall, Elaine J., and Marnie Salupo Rodriguez. 2003. “The Myth of Postfeminism.”
Gender & Society 17(6):878–902.
Harvey, David. 2005. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. New York: Oxford Univer-
sity Press.
Hunt, Scott A., and Robert D. Benford. 1994. “Identity Talk in the Peace and Jus-
tice Movement.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 22(4):488–517.
Hunt, Scott A., Robert D. Benford, and David A. Snow. 1994. “Identity Fields:
Framing Processes and the Social Construction of Movement Identities.” In
New Social Movements: From Ideology to Identity, edited by Enrique Laraña,
Hank Johnston, and Joseph R. Gusfield, 185–208. Philadelphia: Temple Univer-
sity Press.
Jane, Emma. 2014. “ ‘Back to the Kitchen, Cunt’: Speaking the Unspeakable about
Online Misogyny.” Continuum 28(4):558–50.
———. 2016. “Online Misogyny and Feminist Digilantism.” Continuum 30(3):284–
97.
Jasper, James. 1998. “The Emotions of Protest: Affective and Reactive Emotions in
and around Social Movements.” Sociological Forum 13(3):397– 424.
———. 2011. “Emotions and Social Movements: Twenty Years of Theory and Re-
search.” Annual Review of Sociology 37:285–303.
Jordan, Ana. 2016. “Conceptualizing Backlash: (UK) Men’s Right’s Groups,
Antifeminism, and Postfeminism.” Canadian Journal of Women and the Law
28(1):18– 44.
Lyons, N. Matthew. 2017. “Ctrl-Alt-Delete: The Origins and Ideology of the Al-
ternative Right.” In Ctrl-Alt-Delete: An Antifacist Report on the Alt-Right, with
Its Going Down, K. Kersplebedeb, and Bromma, 1–22. Montreal: Kersplebedeb
Publishing.
Mansbridge, Jane. 1986. Why We Lost the Era. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Mansbridge, Jane, and Aldon Morris. 2001. Oppositional Consciousness: The Subjec-
tive Roots of Social Protest. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Marshall, Susan E. 1985. “Ladies against Women: Mobilization Dilemmas of Anti-
feminist Movements.” Social Problems 32(4):348–62.
Martin, Trevor. 2017. “Dissecting Trump’s Most Rabid Online Following.”
FiveThirtyEight, March 23. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/dissecting
-trumps-most-rabid-online-following/.
McCammon, Holly, Karen Campbell, Ellen Granberg, and Christine Mowery. 2001.
“How Movements Win: Gendered Opportunity Structures and US Women’s Suf-
frage Movements, 1866 to 1919.” American Sociological Review 66(1):49–70.
McRobbie, Angela. 2009. The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture, and Social
Change. London: Sage.
Mendes, Kaitlynn. 2012. “ ‘Feminism Rules! Now, Where’s My Swimsuit?’ Re-
evaluating Feminist Discourse in Print Media, 1968–2008.” Media, Culture, and
Society 34(5):554–70.
Messner, Michael A. 1998. “The Limits of ‘the Male Sex Role’: An Analysis of the
Men’s Liberation and Men’s Rights Movements’ Discourse.” Gender & Society
12(3):255–76.
Phillips, Whitney. 2015. This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things: Mapping the Re-
lationship between Online Trolling and Mainstream Culture. Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press.
Polleta, Francesca. 1998. “ ‘It Was Like a Fever . . .’ Narrative and Identity in Social
Protest.” Social Problems 45(2):137–59.
Polleta, Francesca, and James M. Jasper. 2001. “Collective Identity and Social
Movements.” Annual Review of Sociology 27:283–305.
Rohlinger, Deana. 2015. Abortion Politics, Mass Media, and Social Movements in
America. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Rohlinger, Deana, and Leslie Bunnage. 2015. “Connecting People to Politics over
Time? Internet Communication Technology and Retention in MoveOn.org
and the Florida Tea Party Movement.” Information, Communication, and Soci-
ety 18(5):539–52.
———. 2017. “Did the Tea Party Movement Fuel the Trump-Train? The Role of
Social Media in Activist Persistence and Political Change in the 21st Century.”
Social Media and Society 3(2).
Rohlinger, Deana, Jesse Klein, Tara Stamm, and Kyle Rogers. 2015. “Constricting
Boundaries: Collective Identity in the Tea Party Movement.” In Border Politics,
Social Movements, and Globalization, edited by Nancy Naples and Jennifer
Bickham Mendez, 177–205. New York: New York University Press.
Salter, Michael. 2016. “Men’s Rights or Men’s Needs? Anti-feminism in Australian
Men’s Health Promotion.” Canadian Journal of Women and the Law 28(1):69–90.
Sandoval, Chela. 1991. “US Third World Feminism: The Theory and Method of
Oppositional Consciousness in the Postmodern World.” Genders 10 (Spring):
1–24.
Schrock, Douglas, and Michael Schwalbe. 2009. “Men, Masculinity, and Manhood
Acts.” Annual Review of Sociology 35:277–95.
Schwalbe, Michael, Sandra Godwin, Daphne Holden, Douglas Schrock, Shealy
Thompson, and Michele Wolkomir. 2000. “Generic Processes in the Reproduc-
tion of Inequality: An Interactionist Analysis.” Social Forces 79(2):419–52.
Simon, Bernd, and Olga Grabow. 2010. “The Politicization of Migrants: Further
Evidence That Politicized Collective Identity Is a Dual Identity.” Political Psy-
chology 31(5):717–38.
Simon, Bernd, and Bert Klandermans. 2001. “Politicized Collective Identity: A So-
cial Psychological Analysis.” American Psychologist 56(4):319–31.
Snow, David A., and Doug McAdam. 2000. “Identity Work Processes in the Con-
text of Social Movements: Clarifying the Identity/Movement Nexus.” In Self,
Identity, and Social Movements, edited by Sheldon Stryker, Timothy J. Owens,
and Robert W. White, 41–67. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Sobieraj, Sarah. 2017. “Bitch, Slut, Skank, Cunt: Patterned Resistance to Women’s Vis-
ibility in Digital Politics.” Information, Communication, and Society 21(8):1700–
1714.
Southern Poverty Law Center. 2012. “Misogyny: The Sites.” Intelligence Reports,
March 1. https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2012
/misogyny-sites.
Staggenborg, Suzanne, and Verta Taylor. 2005. “Whatever Happened to the Wom-
en’s Movement?” Mobilization 10(1):37–52.
Taylor, Verta. 1989. “Social Movement Continuity: The Women’s Movement in
Abeyance.” American Sociological Review 54(5):761–75.