White supremacist groups explicitly target recruits using the memes and fake-joking language of Internet culture. The HuffPost obtained what it called a style guide used by one of the more prominent white nationalist sites, the Daily Stormer, which outlined how it targeted recruits to its ideology.
“Most people are not comfortable with material that comes off as vitriolic, raging, non-ironic hatred,” the document read. “The unindoctrinated should not be able to tell if we are joking or not.”
The section is called “Lulz.”
Who is targeted? Largely disaffected young men — young white men — who are fed rhetoric that empowers them by casting others as a threat to them and their cultures.
“We are dealing with angry, disaffected men, mostly White, who find purpose & community with these extremist groups who give them a hero’s narrative through violent ideology of White supremacy,” New York Times contributor Wajahat Ali wrote on Twitter after the New Zealand attacks. “It’s like White ISIS.”