If you’re like me, by which I mean someone with active social media accounts, you probably have some friends that constantly post haughty feminist memes and other such social justice warrior tripe. Posts that exist merely to denigrate men or white people or posts meant to cajole or shame you into calling yourself a feminist.

The fact that these people are within your networks means they are your friends. You have probably known them to be of acceptable levels of intelligence at some point, when you allowed them into your network. Some of the feminists I know are not only highly intelligent women, but some are hot as well. How exactly does this happen? How do normal and intelligent people wind up becoming consumed by a cult like ideology built on feelings and identity politics?

The truth is that there is a cult mentality at play. It will not fit in with many traditional definitions of cults you will find as it is not based so much on following a specific leader, but rather this is a new type of cult that has manifested itself with the advent of the internet, an internet cult, if you will.

As mentioned previously, I have a little bit of experience with such things, for yes I was once a member of an internet cult. The cult of conspiracy theory.

Holy shit, Jay, is that you?

What is it about these internet subcultures that allow intelligent people to become indoctrinated into a certain kind of willful ignorance?

Esoteric knowledge Projection of personal problems onto invisible boogey-man Sense of righteousness

First off, remember it’s an internet cult we’re talking about, so the people most at risk of falling deeply into this tend to spend a lot of time alone and online. What first tends to draw people in is of course normal human curiosity. There’s this kind of ‘secret’ knowledge being offered and most people are too ignorant to even bother learning about it but if you watch all these Alex Jones documentaries you’ll learn how the world really works…and who your true enemy is.

And that’s the clincher that will draw many in to start, the promise of esoteric answers. And of course you get your payoff. In the world of conspiracies it’s the Illuminati. In Feminism you have the Patriarchy.

Do you know what the best part about not immediately rejecting such ideas as utter nonsense is? Lack of accountability. The fact that after high school I decided to spend a few years mostly partying and doing drugs and then I decided to go do an arts degree and accrue thousands and thousands of dollars in student loans and now I can’t get ahead? It’s not my fault, naturally, because it turns out society was crafted from the very beginning to fuck me. Damn you Illuminati.

This lack of personal accountability is hard for most serious or perpetual fuck-ups to easily forgo. Most inductees don’t have the level of self awareness to admit this side of the appeal to themselves of course, it’s really only in hind-sight that I understand some of these things about myself.

Finally the inductee gets to start fighting the good fight and carrying their head high knowing they are now living a life of selfless altruism so that future generations won’t suffer the same slings and arrows.

This fight generally manifests itself by telling everyone and anyone who will give you the time of day how shitty things are. This of course only will ultimately result in humans of a moderate nature becoming more and more distant from your crazy ass.

In a future post I will reveal how #GamerGate was an inside job.