Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-5b777bbd6c-5mwv9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-06-19T22:41:41.964Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

10 - Language, Manipulation, and Online Radicalisation

Weaponising Discourses of Masculinity on r/The_Donald

from III - The Dark Side of Persuasion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2025

By
Robert Lawson
Edited by
Sofia Rüdiger  and
Daria Dayter
Sofia Rüdiger
Affiliation:
Universität Bayreuth, Germany
Daria Dayter
Affiliation:
Tampere University, Finland
Get access

Summary

While a great deal of research has examined the form and format of extremist content and the expressions of hate speech that exist within far-right online communities, there has been less attention on why young men, the primary target audience, become motivated to engage with this kind of material. As a corollary, what is also missing from most accounts of radicalisation is a sustained discussion of how discourses of masculinity are leveraged in extremist spaces and how these discourses become part of an overarching system of persuasion, manipulation, and, ultimately, recruitment to extremist organisations. This chapter offers an analysis of data collected from r/The_Donald to examine how discourses of masculinity are exploited as a means of promoting and normalising extremist positions within the community. The chapter also shows how these discourses of masculinity are bound up with race and ethnicity, where particular raced and gendered configurations become valorised as ideal, normative, and desirable. Taking all of this together, I argue that closer attention to the nature of these gendered discourses can help us develop more effective interventions around deradicalization, as well as better informing public education campaigns, particularly those aimed at young men.

Keywords

masculinitymenRedditr/The_Donaldalt-rightradicalisation
Type
Chapter
Information
Manipulation, Influence and Deception
The Changing Landscape of Persuasive Language
 , pp. 196 - 220
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Anthony, L. (2022). AntConc. Waseda University. http://www.antlab.sci.waseda.ac.jp/Google Scholar
Askanius, T. (2021). On frogs, monkeys, and execution memes: Exploring the humor-hate nexus at the intersection of neo-Nazi and alt-right movements in Sweden. Television & New Media, 22(2), 147–165.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baele, S. J., Brace, L., & Coan, T. G. (2019). From ‘incel’ to ‘saint’: Analyzing the violent worldview behind the 2018 Toronto attack. Terrorism and Political Violence, 8(1), 1–25.Google Scholar
Baker, P., & Levon, E. (2016). ‘That’s what I call a man’: Representations of racialised and classed masculinities in the UK print media. Gender and Language, 10(1), 106–139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bailey, J. (2016, 21 November). The ‘not-all-manosphere’: Masculinity and the online alt-right. https://scatter.wordpress.com/2016/11/21/the-not-all-manosphere-masculinity-and-the-online-alt-right/Google Scholar
Barber, P. (2023). ‘SAVE ME WHITE JESUS!’ Conspiracy and the spectre of a folkloric, Alt-right masculine ideal. In Fowler-Watt, K. & McDougall, J. (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of media misinformation (pp. 101–108). Springer International.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barnes, L. (2017, 5 October). Exposé on Breitbart proves the ‘alt-right’ is just a euphemism for White supremacists. https://thinkprogress.org/breitbart-expose-white-supremacists-e348021c491a/Google Scholar
Bleakley, P. (2021). Panic, pizza and mainstreaming the alt-right: A social media analysis of Pizzagate and the rise of the QAnon conspiracy. Current Sociology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/001139212110348CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boe, B. (2012). PRAW: The Python Reddit API wrapper. https://github.com/praw-dev/praw/Google Scholar
Braddock, K., Hughes, B., Goldberg, B., & Miller-Idriss, C. (2022). Engagement in subversive online activity predicts susceptibility to persuasion by far-right extremist propaganda. New Media & Society, February, 146144482210772.Google Scholar
Brandom, R. (2018, 24 September). Russian troll sites infiltrated Donald Trump subreddit as recently as this month. The Verge. www.theverge.com/2018/9/24/17896586/reddit-the-donald-russia-troll-farm-ira-influence-operationGoogle Scholar
Collins, L. C. (2019). Corpus linguistics for online communication: A guide for research. Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Copland, S. (2022). The online manosphere and misogyny in the far-right: The case of the #thotaudit. In Devries, M., Bessant, J., & Watts, R. (Eds.), Rise of the far right: Technologies of recruitment and mobilization (pp. 107–126). Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Cornelisse, J. (2018). Cucks, Keks, and Pepes: A linguistic approach to studying user migration from the manosphere to the alt-right [MA dissertation]. Universiteit van Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Cousineau, L. S. (2022). ‘A positive identity for men’: Pathways to far-right participation through Reddit’s /r/MensRights and /r/TheRedPill. In Devries, M., Bessant, J., & Watts, R. (Eds.), Rise of the far right: Technologies of recruitment and mobilization (pp. 127–146). Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Daniels, J. (2018). The algorithmic rise of the ‘alt-right’. Contexts, 17(1), 60–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DeCook, J. R. (2018). Memes and symbolic violence: #proudboys and the use of memes for propaganda and the construction of collective identity. Learning, Media and Technology, 43(4), 485–504.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Derksen, C., Serlachius, A., Petrie, K. J., & Dalbeth, N. (2017). ‘What say ye gout experts?’ A content analysis of questions about gout posted on the social news website Reddit. BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, 18, 1–5.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Donovan, J., Lewis, B., & Friedberg, B. (2019). Parallel ports: Sociotechnical change from the alt-right to alt-tech. In Fielitz, M. & Thurston, N. (Eds.), Post-digital cultures of the far right: Online actions and offline consequences in Europe and the US (pp. 49–65). Transcript Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ebner, J. (2021). Going dark: The secret social lives of extremists. Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Ehrenfreund, M. (2016, 21 November). What the alt-right really wants, according to a professor writing a book about them. Washington Post. www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/11/21/what-the-alt-right-really-wants-according-to-a-professor-writing-a-book-about-them/Google Scholar
Evans, R. (2018, 11 October). From memes to infowars: How 75 fascist activists were ‘red-pilled’. Bellingcat. www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2018/10/11/memes-infowars-75-fascist-activists-red-pilled/Google Scholar
Formato, F., & Iveson, M. (2022). ‘Men of today, soyboys of tomorrow’: Constructions of masculinities in YouTube responses to Gillette’s The Best Men Can Be. Discourse, Context & Media, 49, 100628.Google Scholar
Ganesh, B. (2020). Weaponizing White Thymos: Flows of rage in the online audiences of the alt-right. Cultural Studies, 34(6), 892–924.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gaudette, T., Scrivens, R., Davies, G., & Frank, R. (2021). Upvoting extremism: Collective identity formation and the extreme right on Reddit. New Media & Society, 23(12), 3491–3508.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ging, D. (2017). Alphas, betas, and incels: Theorizing the masculinities of the manosphere. Men and Masculinities, 22(4), 638–657.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grover, T., & Mark, G. (2019). Detecting potential warning behaviors of ideological radicalization in an alt-right subreddit. Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, 13, 193–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guazzini, A., Stefanelli, F., & Imbimbo, E. (2020). Further examples of violent attitudes: The online radicalisation. In Meringolo, P. (Ed.), Preventing violent radicalisation in Europe: Multidisciplinary perspectives (pp. 191–208). Springer International.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Habib, H., Srinivasan, P., & Nithyanand, R. (2022). Making a radical misogynist: How online social engagement with the manosphere influences traits of radicalization. arXiv. http://arxiv.org/abs/2202.08805CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hakoköngäs, E., Halmesvaara, O., & Sakki, I. (2020). Persuasion through bitter humor: Multimodal discourse analysis of rhetoric in internet memes of two far-right groups in Finland. Social Media + Society, 6(2), 2056305120921575.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hartzell, S. L. (2018). Alt-White: Conceptualizing the ‘alt-right’ as a rhetorical bridge between White nationalism and mainstream public discourse. Journal of Contemporary Rhetoric, 8(1–2), 6–25.Google Scholar
Holmes, J. (2016, 9 November). Are young, White males being radicalized online? Esquire. www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a50513/young-trump-voters-undercover/Google Scholar
Jacobson, E. (2019). Performing and resisting toxic masculinities on sports comment boards. In Guzzetti, B. J., Bean, T. W., & Dunkerly-Bean, J. (Eds.), Literacies, sexualities, and Gender: Understanding identities from preschool to adulthood (pp. 169–181). Routledge.Google Scholar
Johnson, G. (2017, 4 January). White nationalism, the alt right, & the alt light. Counter-Currents. https://counter-currents.com/2017/01/white-nationalism-the-alt-right-and-the-alt-lightGoogle Scholar
Johnson, P. E. (2017). The art of masculine victimhood: Donald Trump’s demagoguery. Women’s Studies in Communication, 40(3), 229–250.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kimmel, M. (2017). Angry White men: American masculinity at the end of an era. Nation Books.Google Scholar
Kimmel, M. (2018). Healing from hate: How young men get into―and out of―violent extremism. University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krendel, A., McGlashan, M., & Koller, V. (2022). The representation of gendered social actors across five manosphere communities on Reddit. Corpora, 17(2), 291–321.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kutner, S. (2020). Swiping right: The allure of hyper masculinity and cryptofascism for men who join the proud boys. International Centre for Counter-Terrorism.Google Scholar
Lakoff, G. (2016, 24 July). Understanding Trump. George Lakoff [blog]. https://georgelakoff.com/2016/07/23/understanding-trump-2/Google Scholar
Lawson, R. (2022a). Tackling online radicalisation: Language, masculinities, and the role of the English curriculum. Teaching English, 28, 57–62.Google Scholar
Lawson, R. (2022b, 27 October). Andrew Tate: How the ‘manosphere’ influencer is selling extreme masculinity to young men. The Conversation. http://theconversation.com/andrew-tate-how-the-manosphere-influencer-is-selling-extreme-masculinity-to-young-men-192564Google Scholar
Lawson, R.. (2023). Language and mediated masculinities: Cultures, contexts, constraints. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lorenzo-Dus, N. (2022, 12 October). Manipulation and cyber-crime: The case of digital grooming. Paper presented at the Online Selves – Self Online Digital Lecture Series, Tampere University.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Louw, B. (1993). Irony in the text or insincerity in the writer? The diagnostic potential of semantic prosodies. In Baker, M., Francis, G., & Tognini-Bonelli, E. (Eds.), Text and technology: In honour of John Sinclair (pp. 157–176). John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lynskey, D. (2018, 7 February). How dangerous is Jordan B Peterson, the rightwing professor who ‘hit a hornets’ nest’? The Guardian. www.theguardian.com/science/2018/feb/07/how-dangerous-is-jordan-b-peterson-the-rightwing-professor-who-hit-a-hornets-nestGoogle Scholar
Lyons, M. N. (2017, 20 January). Ctrl-Alt-Delete: The origins and ideology of the alternative right. Political Research Associates [blog]. www.politicalresearch.org/2017/01/20/ctrl-alt-delete-report-on-the-alternative-right#sthash.pyfXkALX.uO2xtz0b.dpbsGoogle Scholar
Lyons, M. N. (2018). Insurgent supremacists: The U.S. far right’s challenge to state and empire. PM Press.Google Scholar
Macklin, G. (2019). Greg Johnson and Counter-Currents. In Sedgwick, M. (Ed.), Key thinkers of the radical right: Behind the new threat to liberal democracy (pp. 204–223). Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mamié, R., Ribeiro, M. H., & West, R. (2021). Are anti-feminist communities gateways to the far right? Evidence from Reddit and YouTube. In 13th ACM Web Science Conference 2021 (pp. 139–147). ACM.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marantz, A. (2017, 6 July). The alt-right branding war has torn the movement in two. The New Yorker. www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-alt-right-branding-war-has-torn-the-movement-in-twoGoogle Scholar
Martin, T. (2017, 23 March). Dissecting Trump’s most rabid online following. FiveThirtyEight [blog]. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/dissecting-trumps-most-rabid-online-following/Google Scholar
Marwick, A. (2022, 19 May). What people misunderstand about red-pilling. Slate. Retrieved from https://slate.com/technology/2022/05/red-pill-buffalo-shooter-online-hate-groups-research.htmlGoogle Scholar
Marwick, A., & Lewis, R. (2017). Media manipulation and disinformation online. Data & Society Research Institute.Google Scholar
McIntosh, J. (2020). Introduction: The Trump era as a linguistic emergency. In McIntosh, J. & Mendoza-Denton, N. (Eds.), Language in the Trump era: Scandals and emergencies (pp. 1–43). Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McLamore, Q., & Uluğ, Ö. M. (2020). Social representations of sociopolitical groups on r/The_Donald and emergent conflict narratives: A qualitative content analysis. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 20(1), 508–535.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Munn, L. (2019). Alt-right pipeline: Individual journeys to extremism online. First Monday, 24(6). https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v24i6.10108Google Scholar
Park, A., & Conway, M. (2018). Harnessing Reddit to understand the written-communication challenges experienced by individuals with mental health disorders: Analysis of texts from mental health communities. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 20(4), e8219.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Perry, B. (2021). Right wing extremism and youth recruitment. The Journal of Intelligence, Conflict, and Warfare, 4(1), 157–160.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prakasam, N., & Huxtable-Thomas, L. (2021). Reddit: Affordances as an enabler for shifting loyalties. Information Systems Frontiers, 23(3), 723–751.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Proferes, N., Jones, N., Gilbert, S., Fiesler, C., & Zimmer, M. (2021). Studying Reddit: A systematic overview of disciplines, approaches, methods, and ethics. Social Media + Society, 7(2), 205630512110190.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ribeiro, M. H., Jhaver, S., Zannettou, S., Blackburn, J., Stringhini, G., De Cristofaro, E., & West, R. (2021). Do platform migrations compromise content moderation? Evidence from r/The_Donald and r/Incels. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 5(CSCW2), 1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Romano, A. (2021, 17 January). Baked Alaska’s clout-chasing spiral into White supremacy is an internet morality tale. Vox. www.vox.com/22235691/baked-alaska-tim-gionet-arrest-capitol-riot-alt-right-buzzfeedGoogle Scholar
Roose, J., Flood, M., & Alfano, M. (2020). Challenging the use of masculinity as a recruitment mechanism in extremist narratives. Department of Justice and Community Safety.Google Scholar
Roose, J., Flood, M., Greig, A., Alfano, M., & Copland, S. (2022). Masculinity and violent extremism: Global masculinities. Springer International.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, M. (1997). PC analysis of key words – and key key words. System, 25(2), 233–245.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, N. (2009). WordSmith frequency lists and keywords: Keyword analysis. www.lancaster.ac.uk/fss/courses/ling/corpus/blue/l03_2.htmGoogle Scholar
Sonnad, N., & Squirrell, T. (2017, 30 October). The alt-right is creating its own dialect. Here’s the dictionary. Quartz. https://qz.com/1092037/the-alt-right-is-creating-its-own-dialect-heres-a-complete-guide/Google Scholar
Southern Poverty Law Center. (2017). Alt-right. Southern Poverty Law Center. www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/alt-rightGoogle Scholar
Squirrell, T. (2017, 18 August). Linguistic data analysis of 3 billion Reddit comments shows the alt-right is getting stronger. Quartz [blog]. https://qz.com/1056319/what-is-the-alt-right-a-linguistic-data-analysis-of-3-billion-reddit-comments-shows-a-disparate-group-that-is-quickly-uniting/Google Scholar
Sugiura, L. (2021). The incel rebellion: The rise of the manosphere and the virtual war against women. Emerald Publishing.Google Scholar
Trott, V. A. (2020). ‘Gillette: The best a beta can get’: Networking hegemonic masculinity in the digital sphere. New Media & Society, 24(6), 1–18.Google Scholar
Trzybinski, C., Van De Wiele, C., & Schumacher, M. (2022). Radicalization and recruitment online: An analysis of alt-right online extremist groups in the United States. Poster presented at the Undergraduate Research and Engagement Symposium, Chicago.Google Scholar
Washington Post Staff. (2021, 15 January). Identifying far-right symbols that appeared at the U.S. Capitol Riot. Washington Post. www.washingtonpost.com/nation/interactive/2021/far-right-symbols-capitol-riot/Google Scholar
Weimann, G., & Masri, N. (2023). Research note: Spreading hate on TikTok. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 46(5), 752–765.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winter, A. (2019). Online hate: From the far-right to the ‘alt-right’ and from the margins to the mainstream. In Lumsden, K. & Harmer, E. (Eds.), Online othering (pp. 39–63). Springer International.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×