Far-right provocateurs are exploiting the loneliness epidemic to lure Gen Z into embracing fringe ideologies and conspiracy theories. What to do?
The rise of online provocateurs and extremist shock jocks—whether it be the likes of Hasan Piker on the far-left, or Nick Fuentes on the far-right—is emblematic of a sort of cultural decline, brought on by a troubling erosion of civil society.
These streamers—who now find a safe space to disseminate their crackpottery and conspiracy theories on X, the new internet Wild West, which looks more like 4chan than it does Twitter—are the byproduct of a dearth in community and belonging.
Gen Z, who grew up in the America of Bowling Alone, is lonely, secular (though, that might be starting to change), and without ethical mooring.
Thus, young people, having been largely brought up without the protective layer that civil society offers, are increasingly amenable to fringe ideologies, far-fetched conspiracy theories, and the lunatic ramblings of chronically online grifters.
Florida Republican gubernatorial hopeful James Fishback, for instance—a Groyper-adjacent 31-year-old who uses esoteric online-colloquialisms like “goyslop” and pals around with pro-Mamdani Islamist streamers on Rumble—is leading his primary challenger, Congressman Byron Donalds, 32% to 8% with Republican voters 18–34 years old.
Why, though, are Zoomers on the political right gravitating to someone who fields questions regarding the “Jewish Question” and refers to his black primary challenger as “By’rone”? What’s more, why are Zoomers drawn to the rebarbative Nick Fuentes, someone who routinely ridicules his own supporters (here is Fuentes telling a super-chatter who sent him $50, “I wish I had a job where I didn’t have to deal with you people at all”)?
The way I see it, the answer is actually quite simple: Young people crave belonging and recognition, and if they can’t find it in civil society, they’ll find it in online influencers. If someone says to them, “I see you, I hear you, and I will fight for you,” they’re in. When people feel unseen and forgotten, they cling to those who give them even a second of their time (watch this young woman break down in tears when meeting Fishback at an event in Jacksonville).
In his book Alienated America, American Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Tim Carney makes the case that Donald Trump appealed most to those Americans who felt forgotten and suffered from a lack of “social connectedness,” while voters who were deeply integrated into their communities and had a rich civic life abstained from Trumpism:
“The ‘civically disengaged’—those who didn’t belong to clubs or organizations, or go to church—were Trump’s base in the Republican primaries. . . . Civil society,” Carney maintains, “provides a sense of purpose.”
Before Tucker Carlson infamously platformed Fuentes on his X podcast, the Groyper Godfather himself, responding to attacks from Carlson, remarked on his Rumble-hosted show that he is “one of the real disaffected white people.”
Fuentes is, in other words, a representative of those young men that Carney wrote about, who are plagued by a lack of social connectedness and community belonging. In the far-right, Fuentes found a home. And now, many young Gen Z men find a home in Fuentesian circles, wherein they are not lambasted as “racists” or “antisemites,” but welcomed without judgement.
In a phone interview, Jack Buckby, author of Monster of Their Own Making: How the Far Left, the Media, and Politicians are Creating Far-Right Extremists, told me about how he was “ostracized” and “spit at” as an outspoken conservative teenager in England. His right-of-center views, which really weren’t all that controversial to begin with, left him with more foes than friends. That was until he found a home in the far-right.
“What I found with these parties that I was involved with—including the BNP, which was a literal white separatist party—yeah, it gave me community.”
Buckby went on to tell me that these groups—whether they be an organized political party like the BNP or a more rag-tag cadre of trolls like the Groypers—lure well-meaning people into their movements with sensible concerns, like unfettered illegal immigration and the perils of economic globalization, but then slowly start to “red pill” their new adherents with their Zionist Occupied Government (ZOG) conspiracy theories and misogynistic, manosphere quackery, à la Andrew Tate, Myron Gaines, and others.
Buckby cautions young people who are tempted to go down these dark internet rabbit holes: “Just because these online communities correctly identify some social ills, doesn’t mean that every assessment they have is going to be correct.”
As an undergraduate student in Brooklyn, I too found myself flirting with elements of what was then commonly referred to as the “alt-right.” While I was never formerly affiliated with the alt-right or any of its sketchy offshoots, I did find myself listening to Richard Spencer-types and finding a sort of digital community in certain online forums.
When I think back to that time, though, I recall being profoundly lonely and isolated. I did not participate in any afterschool clubs or extracurricular activities, nor did I volunteer in any organizations or attend religious services. Rather, going to college for me was like punching a clock. I was a commuter student, meaning that I didn’t experience dorm- or campus-life. I was untethered in a way that was detrimental to my own wellbeing.
It was only when I started to search for third places, cultivate and expand my friend group, and engage with others with disparate ideological worldviews that I began to clearly see these far-right internet provocateurs for what they really were: cheap political catnip for the lost and hungry.
Complaining about the Groypers of the world will not make them go away. And cancellation is a dangerous and slippery slope that we ought not entertain. The most pragmatic and effective plan of action, rather, is to work tirelessly to repatch America’s fraying social fabric and bring back to life our robust tradition of civil society.
