Alt-Right Inferno: Amity Underground, #1

By Ruairi Wood

In our first ever zine we take a look at the far-right online movement known as the alt-right: the characters, websites and history. 

Illustrated by RednBlackSalamander.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ruairi Wood
• Release date: May 9, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393436379

Book preview

Introduction – The Victims

Caffeinated kids staying up late to play video games and browse internet memes on the other side of the planet found out about the Christchurch massacre before local cops did. Going back over Brenton Tarrant’s explicit posts on his social media accounts before the incident, the only things that shrouded his nauseating plot were a veil of irony (crucial to the online far right) and a complete ignorance of how his internet subculture operates and the threat it poses on behalf of a largely baby boomer-led popular media landscape.

Six weeks later, an antisemitic attack on a synagogue in Poway, California was committed by another twisted individual who ‘lurked’ on the very same board for a year and a half. His manifesto, like that of the Christchurch shooter, was full of tropes, jokes and themes that anyone who is familiar with the alt-right would recognise in an instant.

On behalf of the 50 Muslims who lost their lives on what Jacinda Ardern called 'one of New Zealand’s darkest days’ and the American Jews who, within living memory of the holocaust, feel an existential threat closing in from the Western far-right, I believe it’s necessary to shine light on this grim subculture, with a particular emphasis on their successful assimilation into mainstream conservative media across the anglosphere. 

I do not believe that exposing them will help propagate their ideas, as has been suggested to me. The alt-right benefit from an opaque identity of dog-whistles and subtle symbols which allow its adherents to thrive in wider society with plausible deniability of their racist instincts.

One thing that strikes me as particularly sinister about the movement is its lack of motives and explanatory forces. Almost every far-right movement in history was indirectly provoked, if not entirely caused, by some economic collapse or profound societal event. The alt-right, however, have no common class, economic or even national thread which binds them together: merely a shared hatred of non-whites and an internet connection with a decent upload speed. We are dealing with pure, unfettered nihilism that does not respond to reason.

Fascism: 'A form of political behaviour marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration

Reviews for Alt-Right Inferno

[Ben Holland · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The character profiles are funny and insightful. Enjoyed it a lot.

[Bae Guevara · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Interesting new zine. Informative and humorous​; makes light of a dark subject.