Ignoring philosophical arguments about whether the “dissident right” (DR) exists, the label stuck, effectively ending the debate. Historically, the DR is a continuation of the old alt-right that died after the Charlottesville rally. Concretely, I would define the DR as being online, opposed to the conservative establishment, and right wing.
Historically, I would define 2016-2019 as when the DR started, defined by communities like frogtwitter and the NRx guys. Then the subculture started to really kick off around 2020-2023: COVID made everybody realise everybody else is insane, some money started to circulate behind the scenes, and Elon Musk bought twitter. The vibe shift happened.
Now it’s been nothing but downhill.
Other critics of the new/alt/dissident/far right have also noticed this but not accurately described why, and have blamed the movement’s ideology, blunders in policy, or the Trump administration. All of these factors are irrelevant.
The biggest problem is selection: the type of person who gets into the online right has changed over time. The people who got into it pre 2021 were largely in it for the ideas and the humour, but after that it started attracting people who primarily cared about status rather than ideas themselves. I blame this on there being less low hanging fruit to attract fruit pickers and an increase in the status of the online right wing.
A combination of stagnation in ideas and larger numbers of status apes led to the proliferation of arguing, criticising, and infighting1. These lead to rewards for some of the people involved but will always be a net loss for the movement overall. And it’s not like the movement was particularly cohesive in the first place, I can’t blame BAPists for disliking the trad religious people and vice versa.
There is also the question of who stays in the DR beyond who comes in. Anecdotally, the best of the lot seem to jump ship after a few years or focus on something different. Why isn’t exactly a puzzle: the DR has little to offer beyond some edgy reheated ideas. Despite memes about “Thielbucks”, right wing billionaires almost never fund anything extreme or avant garde, perhaps for good reason. There aren’t many women interested in the DR and the ones that are typically a little… Off2. You could say that for the men as well.
Good artists or entertainers overwhelmingly stay away from extreme politics, even if they are sympathetic3. They have no incentive to associate themselves with bad people and lose out on reach or income. Doing so might get them a dedicated audience of 10,000 weirdos who will follow them no matter what because they agree with their antisocial political views, but who really wants that, right?
These factors leave two types of people remaining in the DR: people with talent but mental issues that prevent them from disassociating or realising that disassociating is the right thing to do and low human capital types who post the same 2016-era talking points and memes. Some people here have definitely made a nice platform for themselves, but the others are mostly 4HLers or retirees who are posting on the internet as a hobby.
The other issue has been the proliferation of ephemeral, generic, and superficial content (slop) on the online right. I attribute this to a cultural shift towards shorter-term content and Elon Musk implementing monetization on twitter. Not all of the slop is bad (I’m a sucker for those Skyrim tiktoks), but most of it is and there’s also way too much of it. I don’t think it’s a primary factor in the decline (other subcultures have become sloppier to), but it has driven off a lot of higher quality posting.
So, yeah, that’s basically what happened. I think TPOT is next in line.
Hallmarks of being a loser.
Not all of them, though. Shoutout to Antigroyper groyper, Emil’s fiancee, and Kenzie
I have a theory that one of the biggest youtubers is pro-DR, but I think it would be better if I never wrote about why I think this is the case.
I myself wonder what I am doing on that platform. The reality is people I actually enjoy talking to are mostly online. I have little to nothing in common with anyone in my city, and I live in a big one. Most of my time is spent in group chats. Twitter also allowed me to discover books and ideas I would've never been exposed to otherwise, though this was largely in 2021-2022-2023; I'm glad I caught the tail end. I reserve most effort posting for this cursed site, and still occasionally effort post on twitter out of pure love of the game. It is possible to find good accounts and carve out niche audiences. I won't lie I really enjoy mocking slop posters and won't stop any time soon, but everyone must have one or two vices.
Unrelated but I am envious of how prolific you are in your blog posts.
Wrong. 2021 was already too late. You say it started in 2016. Nope, way before that, the term was coined circa 2008-2012, and had real intellectuals. Since Trump came along it's been slop. 2021 was an acceleration point because you got anti-vaxx and Stop the Steal, but all the insights that could be gained from this movement were already put out there.