When you think about the alt-right pipeline, you probably picture a group of young, angry men (mostly white) falling down an online rabbit hole that leads from incel forums to more extremist views. As the New York Times reported in the aptly named podcast Rabbit Hole, these journeys of right-wing indoctrination often start because the algorithms of platforms like YouTube and TikTok serve users more and more extreme content over time.
This steady drip of increasingly charged content keeps people scrolling for longer (which equals more money for social media platforms). It also normalizes more and more extreme views, kinda like the old “frog in a boiling pot” analogy. Things that would have seemed way too extreme if users had seen them before drifting down the pipeline come to seem normal — and even correct — to people who have spent months or years being served increasingly far-right content.
Though it’s largely known for going after young men, the alt-right targets women online, too, and you might be surprised by some of the ways this can happen. Recently, former social worker Jess Britvich (@jessbritvich) has been going viral on TikTok for calling out certain online trends for women that can lead to far-right indoctrination.
In one video that’s been viewed over a million times, Jess starts the conversation by saying, “If we don’t want to lose young women to alt-right indoctrination in the same way we lost young men, we need to be very careful, cognizant, and critical of trends that can lead to the alt-right pipeline. Because while these things aren’t inherently conservative or, dare I say, even fascist, sometimes they can be the starting point for a very slippery slope.”
So, what exactly are the trends she’s talking about? First, she names clean beauty and clean eating. According to Jess, these interests can be totally harmless, but she says that from there, “You can quickly slide down the slope to the alt-right by engaging in content around distrust in regulatory bodies, anti-Vax rhetoric, conspiracies around Big Pharma, and next thing you know, you think you’re making America healthy again.”
Next up, she says the trad wife trend is (unsurprisingly) linked to far-right ideology. “While this starts off as romanticizing homemaking, this quickly can slide into a conversation about promoting very rigid gender norms, anti-feminism, and ideologies that contribute to Christian nationalism and white supremacy.”
Jess also calls out diet culture and stick-thin beauty ideals as another force driving women to the right. “While this starts with fitness routines and feeling your best, it’s a slippery slope to assigning moral superiority to thinness, which then can slide pretty quickly into eugenics.”
Next, she says that content around homesteading and homeschooling can start with ideas about self-sufficiency and sustainability and lead to classism, racism, and a lack of trust in institutions like public schools. She says, “I feel this is extra important because of the attacks on the Department of Education right now; this problem is just gonna get worse.”
Another avenue to the alt-right that might surprise you is new-age spirituality. Jess says, “Once, I spent like $200 in a crystal store, and then I went home and looked at the shop and realized that she was like a great awakening weirdo. This is all anti semitic conspiracy, whack-job bullshit, and it’s rampant in the spirituality space.”
She also calls out the popular TikTok discourse about “soft living” and “feminine energy.” Jess says, “While there’s some important conversations here around rejecting hustle culture and rest, this quickly leads to ideas about women needing to submit to their husband back to these really traditional gender roles.”
In a follow-up video, Jess shared a few more ways she’s noticed right-wing content creators spreading their ideas to women. She points to blind items and celebrity gossip channels as another alt-right pipeline, saying, “While these just start as gossip and fun speculation about celebs, these channels are often harshly critical of women. They reinforce a lot of sexist double standards.”
Femininity coaching is another online trend that she warns can lead to extremist ideology. Jess explains this content teaches that “Women should be submissive. Men should lead. Also, language around what it means to be a true woman, ‘stepping into your femininity,’ ‘sitting too much in your masculine’ — this idea that femininity is inherently biological. It’s transphobic.”
And finally, she calls out the “girlification” of everything. “It’s kind of like a fun, quirky way to label everyday habits, but it can quickly trend into infantilization. Once again, it’s enforcing these traditional gender norms, the anti-financial literacy, and just women not being taken seriously.”
In the comments, people shared other online spaces, trends, and hobbies that have been drifting to the right in recent years, such as yoga.
Anti-birth control pill content.
Why has this ideology crept into so many different, previously non-political spaces? Jess argues, “The right isn’t winning because they’re they’re right. They’re winning just by being everywhere and preying on people’s emotions and, dare I say, even being kind of relatable.” She illustrates this point by saying that while pundits on the left strive to educate people about policy, pundits on the right are likely to spend more time having long, unstructured conversations like what you’d find on the Joe Rogan Experience.
She concludes, “So overall, I just think we need more progressive creators online, creating fun, engaging content in these spaces, without the right-wing spin. You do control your own algorithm at the end of the day. Engage with Black and trans creators. Engage with content that isn’t red pill and share it with your friends. We can’t read our way out of this one. We need to take up more space.”
Have you noticed more right-wing content popping up online? Let’s talk about it in the comments!
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‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.buzzfeed.com ’
