A descent into darkness, hate and terror
Friday, Jul 8, 2022 - Posted by Rich Miller
* First, a brief primer on Highland Park…
* NPR…
The cartoonized video of an armed Crimo in a bloody standoff with police is one example that researchers point to when explaining how some violent, fringe online communities come to influence users’ behavior.
“There’s this kind of tendency to ‘gore-post,’ which is essentially to post shocking, graphic, violent imagery in an attempt to draw some kind of camaraderie between the users in these spaces,” said Melanie Smith, head of research at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue US. Crimo appears to have been active in at least one large so-called “gore forum.”
Experts agree that it’s impossible to determine Crimo’s mental health condition from his online content. Newhouse said that the darker alternate reality communities and gore forums are designed to plant the seeds of hopelessness, nihilism and lower one’s natural reluctance to commit violence. He said he noted an inflection point on Crimo’s timeline that may indicate he had fallen farther away from real-world interaction and further into these online subcultures.
“From what we can tell, he became extraordinarily alienated from both his music audience and his in-person social networks, but clearly began exhibiting the signs of being immersed in these much much deeper Internet communities,” he said.
Crimo was a rap artist who released music online. Newhouse said the style of Crimo’s latest album was also markedly different from earlier ones.
“Something was going on in that period of time,” he said.
* The framing of that NPR article has been sharply criticized…
* And some of that criticism has included at least one of the experts quoted by NPR…
I happened to have been in touch with the same experts this NPR article quoted, and I reached out to one of them, Sarah Hightower, an independent researcher who specializes in the far right and online extremist movements, to hear what she thought about the piece.
She was worried about how it had been framed.
“You have this entire community, and they’re scared,” she told me. “And now it looks like they’re essentially being told, ‘Oh no, y’all are overreacting because it’s just edgy white boy sh*t.’”
She had explained to the writer, and in all of her interviews, that you can’t separate ideology and bigotry from these online subcultures, she told me, and she shared evidence of the suspect’s racist and antisemitic posts in hate forums.
The suspect was part of a “gore forum,” a place for people to post things like beheadings. He was part of the Nazi Catboy movement, which is… hard to explain. He was part of the far-right anime fandom movement. Hightower confirmed that he had posted on an online forum conveying Holocaust denial, overt antisemitism, the desire for a new Holocaust as well as a desire to wipe out Black people and Asian people. His last and only remaining post on Facebook before it was shut down said simply, “You are all sinners.”
Not only was the suspect visible at multiple Trump rallies, but a Highland Park resident who knew of his activity and called him a “known agitator” said he was known for violently attacking counter-protestors and referring to Black Lives Matter supporters as “monkeys.” According to a Facebook post by this resident, she had previously informed the police, who she says did nothing.
While all hateful communities are complex in their own ways, there is a common bigotry that unites and drives them, and too often spills out into real-world attacks.
Each group is propelled by bigotry against the vulnerable, an ideology of destruction, and ideologies built on white and Christian supremacy. The explicit goal is to cause terror and confusion. Like all terrorists, they want vulnerable populations to suffer not just the physical toll of a mass shooting, but the emotional toll that then follows their attacks.
While we may never fully understand the full motive behind this specific attack, and it would be wrong to label it simply as “antisemitic,” a simple fact remains: The suspect was active in many online breeding grounds for bigoted extremism, he was a known threat to a synagogue in Highland Park, and he had previously expressed hopes to annihilate minority groups.
- Amalia - Friday, Jul 8, 22 @ 11:04 am:
not only was he a known threat to a synagogue in Highland Park, but I read a Twitter post from a woman who claims he is part of a group that was in a Stop The Steal protest and who did not like the counterprotestors. So the counterprotestors were doxxed including with posters of their address and more. it appears police knew about that. I’d like to know way more about that.
- Thomas Paine - Friday, Jul 8, 22 @ 11:07 am:
He was antisemitic, and I don’t know why some people are so eager to suggest otherwise.
He targeted a community with a prominent Jewish identity while it was celebrating its love of America, a place where he didn’t think they belonged. His country, not theirs.
- Moved East - Friday, Jul 8, 22 @ 11:08 am:
Just another reason why I think the metaverse is going to lead to some bad bad outcomes.
- Decided - Friday, Jul 8, 22 @ 11:12 am:
“According to a Facebook post by this resident, she had previously informed the police, who she says did nothing.”
Sure feels like it may be time someone with investigatory P
powers had a word with the Highland Park PD.
- Big Dipper - Friday, Jul 8, 22 @ 11:15 am:
I wonder if Crimo knows or cares that when Italians immigrated to the United States white Protestants targeted them for discrimination and hate.
- Candy Dogood - Friday, Jul 8, 22 @ 11:22 am:
Darren Bailey is running as an edgelord.
- AlfondoGonz - Friday, Jul 8, 22 @ 11:26 am:
I had to this point not waded into the politics of Crimo or his family for a variety of reasons. But, if asked:
The shooter’s father follows one account on Twitter: an account that archived all of Donald Trump’s tweets. Following the Uvalde massacre, he shooter’s father “liked” a tweet saying (paraphrase) “protect the 2nd amendment with your life.” The shooter was a known harasser of Jews in the area. The shooter was a known harasser of BLM and a participant in the “Stop the Steal” nonsense.
This shooter is everything “the left” has been warning everyone about. Far right, hate-oriented, white grievance, gun culture, violent, sick.
“The left” can’t be the only half condemning these people and their sick, lame ideology.
- ItsMillerTime - Friday, Jul 8, 22 @ 11:26 am:
For people like me who spend to much time online this is a well know issue for years. A YouTube channel posted an excellent series about this called the alt right playbook two years ago https://youtu.be/P55t6eryY3g
Online fandoms for various things always need to be alert about people like Crimo because they will find a way to insert their ideology into it and usurp the fandom under the guise of satire
- StealYourFace - Friday, Jul 8, 22 @ 11:28 am:
I think the NPR article didn’t give enough credit to these bigoted groups being an influence on him, but I do they think they rightfully pointed out that there is a very real and scary part of the internet that glorifies violence simply for the sake of doing so, absent of any ideology. In any case, whether it is overt racism, nationalism, or nihilism/anarchism, Government needs to step up and shut these spaces down permanently. Q-anon, the Christchurch shooter, and Crimo (just to name a few) were all born out of these communities, and it is going to continue to happen until these forums/websites go offline.
- vern - Friday, Jul 8, 22 @ 11:31 am:
The Sartre quote is one of my favorite touchstones. It’s a vital concept for understanding the world, and an easily digestible summary of ideas Orwell would develop at length in pieces like “Politics and the English Language.”
It’s also an important rejoinder to the people who insist this is a a mental health problem and not a gun problem. No medical care requires as much honesty as mental health. There are no imaging or chemical tests for most mental illnesses. The only way to be accurately diagnosed and treated is full cooperation. An ouroboros of trolling, gimmicks and lies cannot be cured through therapy. You have to want to get better, and even with that you have to build the skills of being an effective mental health patient. It’s not easy if you try, and it’s impossible if you refuse to try.
Mental health care is not a synonym for deprogramming or indoctrination. It’s not a panacea for antisocial behavior. Treating mental health like a magic wand for social problems will fail.
- Jocko - Friday, Jul 8, 22 @ 11:34 am:
I shudder to think how many unsupervised, disaffected loners are walking around ready to lash out.
Given how fast both parents lawyered up, it appears they were shocked, but not surprised.
- Roadrager - Friday, Jul 8, 22 @ 11:53 am:
==Online fandoms for various things always need to be alert about people like Crimo because they will find a way to insert their ideology into it and usurp the fandom under the guise of satire==
For me, two pieces on different aspects of this sort of culture have served as centering, helping to explain a lot of the past several years in this country without having to plumb, say, 4chan or 8kun to experience it all for myself.
Deadspin’s “The Future of the Culture Wars is Here, and It’s Gamergate” from 2014:
https://deadspin.com/the-future-of-the-culture-wars-is-here-and-its-gamerga-1646145844
The AV Club’s “South Park Raised a Generation of Trolls” from 2017:
https://www.avclub.com/south-park-raised-a-generation-of-trolls-1798264498
- Homebody - Friday, Jul 8, 22 @ 11:53 am:
Far right politics and almost every form of bigotry has become a Venn diagram of concentric circles. Mainstream media like NPR or NYT is still deathly afraid of admitting this, lest they be called out as being biased.
Their fear of being accused of bias is preventing them from honestly reporting on these types of issues.
- low level - Friday, Jul 8, 22 @ 12:10 pm:
Thank you so much for sharing that, Becky Lang.
- MisterJayEm - Friday, Jul 8, 22 @ 12:32 pm:
I’d feel a lot better about the future of our country if “an ouroboros of trolling, gimmicks and lies” didn’t accurately describe one of our two political parties.
– MrJM
- Matty - Friday, Jul 8, 22 @ 1:29 pm:
Something I’ve been thinking about this week: Was there something in our cultural & societal reaction to 9/11, and what became our post-9/11 world that ended up raising disgruntled and disturbed white boys to the point that they commit mass murder with assault rifles?
We all remember how much things changed for us 21 years ago, but I can’t help but wonder if there was some unrecognized shift for us that helped foster such hate and anger.
- cermak_rd - Friday, Jul 8, 22 @ 1:30 pm:
The gore fascination is interesting in that it was that that experts explained was the attraction to ISIS when European and American young people were being recruited by it.
Fascinating that awful can interest such different groups as those. I suppose they just want the same society just them on top instead of others.
- WestBurbs - Friday, Jul 8, 22 @ 1:52 pm:
I’m pretty taken aback by all the effort to deny that Crimo was motivated by anti-semitism. While we can’t know everything going on in his head, we know he went into a Chabad synagogue (very overt-looking Jews - beards, black hats, etc) with his backpack on (whether his folding semi-auto rifle was in the pack is unknown) and we know HP is very Jewish, both literally and figuratively in the Chicago area. And, of course, shooting began as the Klezmer band passed…
Yet, the media is super-hesitant to raise the anti-semitism issue. As are many/all of my non-Jewish friends. I don’t get it - if this were a white guy shooting up a black or Asian neighborhood, I’m pretty sure “hate” would be a big part of the discussion.
Why so much silence when it is Jews in the crosshairs? Uncomfortable parallels to those anti-Israel types who claim not to be anti-semitic but are quiet about China, Saudi Arabia, Iran or any one of a number of countries who’s “sins” are as bad or worse than Israel’s. Yet they devote their anger only to Israel.
- Amalia - Friday, Jul 8, 22 @ 2:07 pm:
@WestBurbs, good point about the Klezmer band. it seems obvious that there is a massive anti-semitism factor in his actions. the stop the steal folks are also very scary. with the torch mob in Charlottesville and the khaki brigade in the Boston area and the khaki mob in Idaho, we know they are actively working against the Jewish community. call it for what it is.
- Techie - Friday, Jul 8, 22 @ 2:35 pm:
I could well be wrong, but this discussion makes me think of Robert Putnam’s 2000 book “Bowling Alone.” For those unfamiliar, the book explores a decline in in-person engagement in America, especially in the civic realm.
The age of the Internet has surely increased the decline in in-person engagement, as you can now easily communicate with other people without ever setting foot outside your door.
But for many reasons, engaging with people online will never be the same as engaging with people in your own community in person. A big example is just the very way that people talk with each other online; they say very hateful and mean things they would never utter if actually in a room with other people.
It’s not hard to see why many people, especially younger people, can become socially isolated from their local communities and feel like they don’t belong. Moreover, they can easily come to view people in their communities as “other” since political commentators frame some groups as “other”, and if they don’t actually know any of these people in real life, they don’t have good counterexamples to humanize the “other”.
I don’t know how, but if we can get more people spending time in person in their communities and less time online, we might make some progress towards deradicalizing people and reducing the number of people who feel ostracized and disconnected from the world around them.
- TinyDancer(FKASue) - Friday, Jul 8, 22 @ 3:17 pm:
Anti-Semitic far-right attack was the first thing that came to my mind as soon as I saw the Klezmer band.
Thought it was odd that no connection was made.