This post was written by Carina Albrecht, PhD Candidate and Mellon-SFU fellow at the Digital Democracies Institute.
On June 8, 2022, we had the pleasure of hosting Cindy Ma at the Digital Democracies Institute when she presented her fascinating and incredibly important doctoral research. Ma is a doctoral candidate at the Oxford Internet Institute working on the discourse of white racial resentment, focusing on YouTube personalities and their audiences. Her research examines the interactions between online ecosystems, political discourse, and racial inequity. She is also a 2019 Trudeau Scholar and SSHRC Doctoral Fellow.
By asking the question What is the “lite” in the “alt-lite“? Ma investigates how the so-called “alt-lite” use discursive strategies to obfuscate white supremacist views in their Youtube videos. Her findings derive from an impressive qualitative analysis of 100 hours of YouTube videos from alt-lite personalities, 1000+ comments on these videos, observations of Facebook, Reddit and Discord groups, and interviews with current and former viewers of alt-lite YouTube content.
Ma explained that alt-lite is a pejorative term that emerged from a split in the alt-right in the US. Alt-right members coined the term to refer to those who broadly align to their conservative, reactionary ideology but do not openly embrace the creation of a white ethnostate. This split happened when some reactionary celebrities tried to distance themselves from the alt-right during moments of white supremacist public display, such as the Nazi salute at a conference that celebrated Trump’s election victory in 2016, and after the Charlottesville attack in 2017.
Like Ma, other scholars have been trying to understand what defines the alt-lite and how they differ from the alt-right. The academic literature commonly defines the alt-lite as a group that mainstreams far-right ideas but draws the line at blatant displays of white nationalism, embracing a “civic” nationalism that calls for a state built on cultural similarities rather than racial divisions. Their use of humour and digital savviness to produce YouTube content is also often described as a differentiating characteristic. However, these definitions have never been tested with a systematic review of the content made by these groups, and this is why Ma’s research is fundamental. She takes a deep dive into alt-lite content to understand how the racial discourse within the alt-lite is different from the alt-right (or if it is at all).
Although the alt-lite generally position themselves as “colourblind” conservatives, Ma’s research findings tell a different story. For example, Ma found that the alt-lite regards discussions about white privilege as “racist aggressions” toward white people, and argue that structural changes to address racial inequalities are also discriminatory against white people. Furthermore, the belief that people of colour are historically “indebted” to white people because of white people’s “achievements” and “benevolence” is still very present in alt-lite discourse. The alt-right commonly uses all these arguments, so Ma concludes that what makes the alt-lite different is not their refusal of white supremacist discourse, but their use of rhetorical strategies that obfuscate their white supremacist beliefs and allow their content to evade moderation on social media platforms.
This finding is crucial because it has several implications for content moderation. These rhetorical strategies enable alt-lite YouTubers to continue promoting and validating white supremacism while monetizing their channels. Some of the strategies Ma described are: aligning with some minority groups to justify discrimination against other groups (such as praising Asian-Americans’ academic success in the US as a way to argue against affirmative action); highlighting their own relationships with people of colour (such as mentioning a spouse or a friend that are not white); demonstrating knowledge of non-white cultures; and embracing a colourblind worldview by making references to icons from the civil rights movement (usually Martin Luther King Jr.).
But the provocative tone that alt-lite YouTubers tend to use in their content creation is one of the key mitigating rhetorical strategies Ma focuses on as part of her dissertation. She found that some of these alt-lite figures have built a persona that seeks emotional reactions from the viewers by balancing humour with philosophy. For example, Gavin McInnes and Steven Crowder commonly use this strategy when they record “response” videos. These response videos use humour and laughter to mock and “respond” to target videos of people talking about issues such as racism or undocumented immigrants. In these response videos, McInnes and Crowder include some mis- and disinformation that sounds authentic and educational to make fun of the target video, so they appear educated and funny. Ma argues this strategy helps the alt-lite to build emotional intimacy with their audience while creating an “ironic distance” from the racism at the center of their discourse. In her interviews with the viewers, Ma found that provocation and humour made the viewers feel their laughter at (or with) these videos were righteous and justified, reassuring them they have “the right to provoke.” The use of humour and provocation then enable these YouTubers to articulate their white supremacist views, and for viewers to dismiss racist remarks as just “comedy.”
The alt-lite also uses the “right to free speech” as a common mitigating rhetorical strategy to obfuscate white supremacist views. Ma draws from Titley’s book Is Free Speech Racist? to analyze how viewers perceive the alt-lite’s provocative videos, and ask them if they think their strategies contribute to disseminating racist discourse. She found that while most of them expressed discomfort with the racist views expressed in the videos, they believed the YouTubers should have a right to record and distribute those videos. Censoring them would be oppressive and violate their right to free speech. According to this argument, the victims turn out to be the alt-lite YouTubers risking being oppressed by censorship instead of the people of colour that are targeted by their racist jokes. Therefore, the “right to provoke” and “right to free speech” are both used as rhetorical strategies that obfuscate white supremacist discourse.
To learn more about Ma’s research, check out her article What is “lite” in the “alt-lite”? in the journal Social Media + Society.