I Was Radicalized By Online Leftist Content: But Reality Brought Me Back
Almost a decade ago, I radicalized myself with online leftist content and temporarily altered my viewpoint on race.
However, this worldview was short-lived because it didn't match my reality and I was objectively miserable living out this new ideology.
I started working for a large business as an IT support technician, which was my big break in the IT world. However, the catch was that I had to work odd hours as I started work at 3 a.m. Monday to Friday and I was the only support rep for this nationwide company.
Being alone and with very little to do for hours, YouTube became my best friend. I would search for hours for random content that I was remotely curious about. One night I started looking up black figures I knew little about which drove me down a wormhole of racial dogma.
I was curious about Louis Farrakhan, so I looked him up and watched episodes when he was featured on Phil Donahue. Of course, when you start looking up black figures, YouTube recommends more and more obscure people that you might be interested in: I watched them all.
I remember coming across Dr. Joy Degruy who had a concept of "Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome," making the case that the treatment of slaves and traumatic responses from someone with PTSD would be taught as culture to their children and so on.
I'd watch hour-long presentations giving compelling arguments for their theories, and they had some teeth because they had a grain of truth embedded in them. What gave some of these people legitimacy was that they were academics and their arguments can easily convince any layman.
Why was I seeking out racial content anyway? Well, I don't think it was just because I was bored but I felt insecure about my identity. When you spend years being told that you aren't black enough, you get curious about if that's true & what it takes to be accepted.
They say if you look hard enough for something, you'll find it and I thought I’d found the path towards being authentically black. My definition of racism was switched overnight to being "power + privilege" and I became skeptical of the white people around me.
It felt like I discovered the truth but unfortunately, I only discovered it in my 30s because it was hidden from me: You can guess who hid it from me and why! I had manufactured a conspiracy in my head based on the claims of leftist academics.
I didn't go to college so who am I to disregard the claims of professors who taught at the most prestigious universities? For weeks, I felt mildly paranoid about my co-workers, who were mostly white, and conjured faux narratives in my head about how they really felt about me.
It's a miserable feeling to have believing that everyone around you is plotting for your downfall or at the very least, lying to you about how they feel about you. Overnight, some of the nicest people you'd ever want to be around were devils in disguise hoping for my downfall.
However, the constant contradiction of my lived experience and present reality is what brought me back from this mental hell. Most people live in one place their entire life but I had lived in five states at that point, being around all types of people and environments.
My reality was that most people I had dealt with were polite and that the shitty people I encountered came in all colors. I thought about my son, who is mixed race, and if I would want my son to believe that his mother is something she isn't because of her complexion.
I thought about how some years earlier my company's management, who were mostly white, helped save me from sleeping in my car by pooling their money together to place me in a hotel room for weeks after one day of employment and wanted nothing in return.
When I focused on all of the kind and wonderful people of all racial backgrounds who were kind to me, it completely overshadowed the negative people I had encountered throughout my life. After weeks of building animosity and paranoia about white people, I let it all go.
I'm glad I went through this experience because it taught me how powerful propaganda can be when there is a void we're trying to fill. Whether it be fear or insecurity that creates that emptiness, there will always be someone waiting to fill it.
We downplay how powerful the internet can be on your emotional state and how quickly it can change your worldview, especially when being introduced to new information. However, we have to be able to discern good information versus the bad by balancing it with the real world.
The most radicalized tend to be isolated in the real world and they make up for their lack of human connection by building online communities. Thankfully, I wasn't involved in social media then and was able to escape this miserable worldview more easily because of it.
We must be careful of the grain of truth because it sometimes sprouts from poisonous roots.
You are very wise. I've been in that dark place where the internet had too much influence on my thoughts. I'm grateful to be evolving and connecting in new, good ways with people.
When I was in school, long before the internet, there was a comparable condition that some kids fell into and which their parents were on the lookout for: falling in with the wrong crowd. Young people who are searching and/or a bit disaffected easily gravitate toward others who feel the same, and these little nests of discontent acquire a group attitude and set of beliefs - which they then protect. Those beliefs, even when wrong, serve to explain the sense of not belonging which they felt before,. There’s some comfort in that - so they defend those beliefs against the reality they see around them. Unfortunately, social media has created a situation wherein these little groups, many of them toxic and genuinely deranged, can marinate - with their adherents promoting beliefs that are patently false, but which are supported within the group. If anyone challenges those beliefs, they’re set upon immediately and lose whatever sense of support and belonging for which they traded their recognition of reality. We see this in the desperation with which the trans true believers defend the bizarre belief that men dressed as women are actually women. They have found a group within which they’re accepted and praised as long as they profess belief in the narrative, and the narrative serves to explain the alienation they’ve felt. Those are powerful incentives not to break from the group, and these social media groups are like "the wrong crowd" on steroids.