In June 2019, I stumbled across a thread on 8chan in which users expressed their concern about the number of “shills” who had begun to surveil the anonymous board after it served as a platform for Brenton Tarrant, a mass shooter who murdered over fifty Muslims at prayer in Christchurch, New Zealand, to post his manifesto. As a result, 8channers were looking for other options to express their opinions online and reach one another; Discord had proved too easy to infiltrate.

Not coincidentally, one of the “heroes” of many 8channers is an infamous Norwegian anti-Muslim terrorist named Anders Breivik, who murdered seventy-seven people in 2011 in Norway’s worst terrorist attack ever.

When one asked for suggestions, the first reply was: ‘Shoot up a Synagogue. Be a hero.’ Less than a month later, an 8channer carried out just such an attack.

And just as his idol Brenton Tarrant did, Earnest called on fellow 8channers to use their common culture to amplify his words: / Make sure that my sacrifice was not in vain. Spread this letter, make memes, shitpost, FIGHT BACK, […]

The attraction to celebrating a genocide or mass shooter was, on some level, that others wouldn’t. It proved you were a true 8channer: based and red-pilled, committed to one another whatever the reputational cost, having ascended above the petty demands of an off-line world that, in truth, terrified you.

8channer

Meaning

Noun