When Hiroyuki Nishimura opened the 2channel image board back in May 1999 at the University of Central Arkansas, little did he suspect that it would trigger a chain of events connecting Anonymous, Donald Trump and virtual reality.

Such is the misunderstood power of image boards, or meme communities.

They are anonymous, crowd-sourced cultural production platforms with server capacity as their ever-expanding limit. They are the mass media best suited to today’s technology.

At once giant factories, supermarkets and galleries for the subconscious expression of the digital masses. Just think Facebook and Twitter without parental and shareholder filters.

“At once giant factories, supermarkets and galleries for the subconscious expression of the digital masses.” — caption from Imgur

Palmer Luckey, who as a 21-year-old sold his company Oculus VR to Facebook for 2 billion dollars, has been linked to Donald Trump’s meme magic official front, Nimble America.

As a key founding donor, certainly. As vice-president, possibly.

Whether he is a skilled practitioner or simply a connoisseur of the dark arts of 4chan, we may never know. After all, that is the nature of anonymous image boards.

“There is a rift in the people. The red and blue feeds. That rarely go purple.”

Donald Trump, for his part, connects different levels of reality.

He has taken over the party of Lincoln and toppled the House of Bush, following his success on reality TV. He is now mounting a serious assault on every other house standing in his way — an ivory, neo-classical one in particular.

Maybe the Trumpocene is and always will be more virtual than it appears.

Most probably not.

The rise of Trump is seen by his detractors as the trigger of apocalyptic realities to be prevented.

By his supporters, as the public expression of inconvenient realities grown too large to be suppressed and ignored.

There is a rift in the people. The red and blue feeds. That rarely go purple.

Whether it is the “back row kids” challenging the front row, or simply the relative loss of white comfort and privilege turned into civilizational neurosis and primal rage, Palmer Luckey is part of something that is looking frighteningly effective behind its shapeless grin.

And occultists are in high demand again.

2084/ is a visual activism collective exploring the overlap between VR, memes and politics. You can follow us on Twitter and Facebook.