INF1005 Final Project

It's a Wednesday afternoon and you're bored. You dropped out of school and you don't have much going on. To pass the time, you make your way to the popular video sharing website, YouTube.com [[Types YouTube.com into your web browser]]

Hmm let's see. What should I watch? [[A video of a cat]] [[Canadian far-right white nationalist, Stefan Molyneux]]

Content warning: //this story contains misogynistic language and discusses white supremacy// This story was orginially published by //The New York Times// in 2019. The article is called "The Making of a YouTube Radical" by Kevin Roose. The names of more inflammatory videos were purposely excluded from this story to avoid promoting and sensationalizing extremist content. [[Let's Begin]]

That was a riveting video on //The Market Value of Female Sexuality//. Now, where to next? [[End Selfishness now! A Motivational Plea]] [[Stefan Molyneux's Epic Fail]]

Well, that was fun. But what about this video of Canadian far-right white nationalist, Stefan Molyneux? That looks interesting... [[Clicks on video->Canadian far-right white nationalist, Stefan Molyneux]]

Interesting. Let's see what else the algorithm is suggestion... [[Illuminati EXPOSED By Former Member Of Bad Boy Records]] [[Panicked Mainstream Media Begins Killing Off Comment Sections]]

What's next? [[Illuminati EXPOSED By Former Member Of Bad Boy Records]] [[Panicked Mainstream Media Begins Killing Off Comment Sections]]

Ok enough with this, what about... [[The Rise of Cultural Libertarianism]] [[Panicked Mainstream Media Begins Killing Off Comment Sections]]

That was interesting. But how about... [[The Rise of Cultural Libertarianism]] [[Facebook Censorship: What They're Not Telling You]]

*Checks the time* Wow. It's past midnight and I've been watching videos this whole time. Maybe I have time for one more video. This looks like a good one... [[Neomasculinity: The Male Backlash Against Toxic Women]]

Ok let's go to that other one now [[The Rise of Cultural Libertarianism]]

At this point, Caleb is well down the YouTube rabbit hole, and it doesn't look like he's coming out anytime soon. [[Can we try to get out of it?]]

This is the story of how Caleb Cain was radicalized by the internet. //From an early age, Caleb was fascinated by internet culture. As a teenager, he browsed 4Chan. He played online games with his friends, and watched videos of intellectuals debating charged topics like the existence of God. The internet was an escape. Caleb grew up in postindustrial Appalachia and was raised by his conservative Christian grandparents. He was smart, but shy and socially awkward, and he carved out an identity during high school as a countercultural punk. He went to community college, but dropped out after three semesters. Broke and depressed, he resolved to get his act together. He began looking for help in the same place he looked for everything: YouTube.// Source: NY Times [[OK, let's go.]]

It's too late. [[So how does this story end?]]

Caleb fought to escape his radicalization when two mosques were attacked in Christchurch, New Zealand, in May 2019. "I thought, well, this isn't just some internet thing. This is going to keep happening. And that event… is the logical conclusion of a belief system as heinous as white nationalism." Caleb was so affected by events, he decided to visit and meet Muslim community leaders in New Zealand, and credits his travel with a mentality shift. "This very narrow world view that I'd been given, I realised that it was a lot more complicated, and that I had a lot more allies in places I didn't expect." Having left the far-right movement, Cain now researches ways to disrupt it, and is concerned about its potential for violence. Source: SkyNews [[Thanks for playing]]

The End.