Rage-Baiting in the Alt-Right Media
Part 1 of 2: Dramaturgy, spectacle, and blatant lies for the sake of views and profit
‘Since Rebel News was trending today….’
On June 12, 2016, Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida was turned into a horrendous crime scene. A muslim-American man shot and killed 49 people and wounded 53.
Caolan Robertson, himself a gay man, was a self-described progressive 21 year old at the time. In an attempt to process his intense emotional reactions to this tragedy, Robertson typed “Orlando” into the YouTube search bar and it was there his gradual indoctrination into the far-right began.
Robertson would spend the following three years diving deeper into alt-right “influencer” culture. Using his background in film production, he became a correspondent for rebel media, a Canadian right-wing extremist political news site known for its anti-muslim ideology.
On March 15, 2019, everything changed.
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