“All of these things are in service of kind of the same project, which is emboldening traditional masculinity,” one expert said.

Summary

In 2024, conservative-leaning online spaces emphasizing traditional masculinity gained mainstream influence, driven by figures like Joe Rogan and trends like the “tradwife” movement.

Platforms like X, under Elon Musk’s ownership, became hubs for anti-“woke” sentiment, while podcasting further amplified right-wing ideas.

This cultural shift mirrored Trump’s election victory and reflected backlash against progressive gender norms.

Though some view these spaces as promoting traditional values, critics warn of growing misogyny and radicalization in the “manosphere.”

The rise of such spaces highlights deepening political polarization online.

  • kibiz0r@midwest.socialEnglish
    2·
    21 hours ago

    They were called The Order, and I misremembered their constituency: more neo-nazi than KKK, although one of their goals was to be a bridge between the two groups.

    Apparently they made a movie about them recently, of the same name, so I’m finding it hard to search for info about the group itself, but I recall hearing the computer-buying tidbit from Behind The Bastards and being able to find a source for it online.

    In case you wanna continue the hunt: I believe it had a sepia-tone picture or illustration at the top of the article and it was a long-form story not a current event piece. I also recall they were specifically Apple II computers, but searching podcast transcripts for the word “apple” yields a flood of results for “apple podcasts”, so not much help there.

    This tool seemed promising, but didn’t quite get me there: https://podscripts.co/podcasts/behind-the-bastards/

    Wikipedia can at least corroborate the armored car bit:

    Their later robberies were more effective, including a bank robbery, followed by a series of three armored car robberies. In the armored car robberies, they took a total of $4.1 million, including their final armored car robbery near Ukiah, California that netted them $3.8 million.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Order_(white_supremacist_group)

    Edit: Part of the problem with the podscripts approach may be that the transcripts are far from perfect:

    Beam admitted that he had set up computer billet and boards for different fascist groups around the country,but denied that these boards were used for any illicit communication.

    “Billet and boards” instead of “bulletin boards”

    Edit 2: Ooh, I think I posted the source on Reddit at one point, and I haven’t scorched-earth’d my comments. I wasn’t able to find it doing site:reddit.com “kibiz0r” armored trucks but you might find it that way if you experiment a bit.