While the alt-right movement may be new, its current drama is as old as the internet itself.

Things have gotten bumpy for the alt-right online movement since the election. It’s facing an identity crisis (what does it mean to be the “alt” if you’re getting what you want?) and grappling with certain fundamental questions like “Are we OK with Nazis?” (Even if its very name was coined by, well, Nazis.) The handful of leaders who emerged over the last year or two are at odds with each other over those and other questions, forcing helpless anime-avatared Twitter trolls caught in the middle to choose sides.

The kerfuffle surrounds the DeploraBall, a black-tie-optional party in DC the night before the inauguration. There has been nasty and public fighting among the organizers. Stick with me here: Mike Cernovich, a lawyer who became an alt-right leader after taking up the GamerGate mantle, feuded with a fellow leader (and former BuzzFeed employee) who goes by “Baked Alaska” and announced that Baked Alaska had been removed from headlining the event because he had said anti-Semitic things on Twitter. Another leader, Bill Mitchell, announced he was no longer part of the alt-right after they started using the racist hashtag #WhiteGenocide. And just recently, Baked Alaska accused (and sources confirmed to BuzzFeed News) one of the DeploraBall organizers of planting a “rape Melania” sign at an anti-Trump protest in an attempt to make protesters look depraved. In the latest surreal twist, a popular alt-right podcaster and founder of the website The Right Stuff was revealed to have a Jewish wife, which sent his fans into a tailspin. At first, this disarray might seem surprising. After all, the alt-right claims to be an unprecedented political phenomenon that memed a president into office. But if you want to understand what’s happening there, it’s helpful to think about it as an internet-first creature. While it’s possible — and necessary — to view it through the lens of political or social thought that it echoes, the other way of making sense of it is to look at it as a digital community, regardless of its politics. And if you view it as an online community rather than a political movement, its trajectory starts to look very, very familiar. What we have here is a classic case of “mod drama.” As someone who has spent a lot of time taxonimizing online communities, from places like Fark to SomethingAwful, 4chan to Facebook groups for moms, I can assure you that one need only look at how other internet groups rise and fall to see what’s happening in the alt-right. STAGES OF A "MOD DRAMA" MELTDOWN: 1. IRL gone wrong:

The first stage of an online community hive death is the disastrous IRL meetup — for the alt-right this seems to be the DeploraBall. It’s also worth noting that the event does not even need to take place — the disaster can arise simply in the organizing of it. People who spend vast amounts of time on the internet are perhaps not best suited to real-world planning and action. There’s a rich graveyard of notable away-from-keyboard flameouts. Here are just a few examples: DashCon: A meetup for Tumblr users that went so poorly it became a punchline of the worst stereotypes of Tumblr users. The organizers ran into money problems, claiming they needed more money from convention attendees (who had already paid for passes in advance) to keep the hotel space. After a speaker canceled, rumors flew that attendees would only receive compensation in the form of a free hour in the world’s saddest ball pit. (Eventually, organizers sent an email offering refunds.)



Goon Island: In 2009, a group of posters from the message board Something Awful attempted to move to Hawaii and live off the land. To the amusement of users on a different board from the same site, the group of message board posters was not exactly suited to life in the wild jungle. One moment in particular — a photo of one of the “goons” (as Something Awful posters call themselves) trying to shoot a wild pig with a BB gun — encapsulated how underprepared they were for the jungle.



Celeb Heights: If you’ve ever googled a famous person’s height (which, weirdly, you probably have), chances are you’ve ended up on a celebheights.com, a forum for a small subculture of people obsessed with celebrity sizes. When the owner of the site finally met up with one of the most prolific volunteers, he was shocked to discover the volunteer was shorter than he claimed, thereby throwing off everything he posted. A massive blog post about the drama was made, and the volunteer was permabanned.

2. Metaboard mocking: Stage two takes place when the community members begin to question their community and leadership within the community itself, using its existing norms and forums to make their points. (On a traditional forum this would take place on the metaboard — a board to talk about the board.) This then forces community leaders to react, and sometimes to overreact. On Reddit, this exists as the /circlejerk board — a board that exists just to make fun of stuff that happens on the other channels, and sometimes to make fun of the admins and leaders. For the alt-right, Twitter acts as its own form of metaboard — and unlike traditional metaboards, the discussion that happens there takes place in public. Bickering between the leaders like Mike Cernovich, Milo Yiannopoulos, and Baked Alaska over the DeploraBall has created rifts among the loyal. They in turn have begun attacking leadership, often using the same language and tactics previously used by the leadership itself. For example, calling Cernovich "Cuckovich":

Cuckovich has abandoned the altright, deleted all tweets about Jews or white genocide. He WAS in it for the wrong r… https://t.co/yFZiTUX3px



3. Splinter board formation: Phase three, often a sure indicator of imminent online hive death, is the schism of the most devout into two groups, one of which decamps to another forum. This is also known as “the splinter board.” You can think of the splinter board as an inevitable consequence of the metaboard infighting when things really go south. This trajectory typically happens after moderators of the board run afoul of devout users, usually by instituting hardline rules or issuing bans on users. One of the best examples of a splinter board is 4chan/8chan. In 2013, 4chan’s admin cracked down on GamerGate talk, and that faction fled to another site, 8chan, who promised an uncensored refuge for those deemed literally too nasty for 4chan. But splinter boards aren’t just for raucous places like 4chan — you see it in all sorts of tamer internet worlds. For Facebook groups, the telltale signs are in the group names, where a group may proudly proclaim its splinter status. Take “Suffolk county thrift without the dumb rules," a group for buy/sell/trade on Long Island. Clearly, some bad shit went down in the regular Suffolk county thrift group and a new, more lawless group was formed. A popular group for “freebirth” (no midwives or even checkups while pregnant) would ban people who mentioned any sort of medical talk — leading to the splinter group “Freebirth/Unassisted birth — NO JUDGEMENT!” For the alt-right, this splinter board schism is well underway. Just before the New Year, Bill Mitchell, a prolific tweeter and radio host, announced that he was no longer affiliated with the alt-right after he was shocked — shocked! — to discover that the alt-right *may* be anti-Semitic and racist. He announced he was now going to be #AmericaFirst.



Whatever #AltRight was, it's been taken over by white supremacists and I disavow it. I'm #AmericaFirst where we can ALL be great again.