Black Pill Quotes

“Nazis and pornographers have become our First Amendment heroes, because they want to be. It has been the conscious strategy of white supremacists for decades. […] This is a conflation of two things: being disliked and being vulnerable. Civil libertarians might say those things are the same. But they’re not. White supremacy is not at the margins of society, but at its center. And so white supremacists have pulled off a great con with the illusion that they’re threatened and need to be protected.”
― Elle Reeve, Black Pill: How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society, and Capture American Politics

“The white power movement had figured out how to be free speech heroes in America. They wrapped themselves in the First Amendment, and made it seem like the most American thing you to do was defend a nazi.”
― Elle Reeve, Black Pill: How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society, and Capture American Politics

“Fascists notice empty gestures of corporate responsibility—the makeup brand posting about police violence, the investment bank sponsoring Pride Week—and use it to attack all work for social justice as cynical and self interested. This elevates a side effect of a cultural shift towards equality and presents it as the main goal, and that makes a win look like a loss. […] They say any attempt to do anything about racism only serves to make society less equal, not more. […] Modern internet fascists are consumed with hatred for liberal democracy.”
― Elle Reeve, Black Pill: How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society, and Capture American Politics

“You don't know that I know that the hidden truth you think you discovered was invented by my sources when your rage was still just an unarticulated irritation flickering in the back of your mind.”
― Elle Reeve, Black Pill: How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society, and Capture American Politics

“The question I asked myself as hundreds of tiki torches lit up in Charlottesville is still a question now: Are they going to win? I don’t know. I don’t believe that events are entirely dictated by sweeping economic trends beyond our control. It matters who decides to act. Employees of social media companies have to decide how much of their work they want to hand over to people who want to subvert democracy. Republicans who abhor racism have to decide whether they’re willing to take personal responsibility to kick fascist infiltrators out of their party. Liberals have to decide whether they’re willing to do anything to make the change they want to see in the world besides post about it online.”
― Elle Reeve, Black Pill: How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society, and Capture American Politics

“White supremacy is not at the margins of society, but at its center. And so white supremacists have pulled off a great con with the illusion that they’re threatened and need to be protected. They rely on civil libertarians to say, You might not like these guys, but if we don’t protect them, the next target will be someone you do like. This is also simplistic, Franks said. “It is not that hard to have principles about speech that we would be perfectly happy to apply to people who are like us and people who are not like us.”
― Elle Reeve, Black Pill: How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society, and Capture American Politics

“Gamergate might not have mattered if it hadn’t gotten the backing of elite opinion. The pose—This is free speech, and if you don’t agree, you’re a pussy—worked. It was extremely persuasive to executives of tech companies, sure, but also intellectuals, the heads of universities, and think piece–writing prestige journalists. It convinced elites that their identities as clear-eyed, rational, non-ideological Smart People were at risk unless they defended the posting privileges of Gamergaters, the anti-feminists, and later the alt-right.”
― Elle Reeve, Black Pill: How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society, and Capture American Politics

“The fascists are smart enough to know how to appeal to smart people with their propaganda. They don’t need to convert everyone to win. They need more people to give up on the possibility of change because it’s hopeless—they need a critical mass to be blackpilled.”
― Elle Reeve, Black Pill: How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society, and Capture American Politics

“The Republican Party takes “white resentment rocket fuel,” Parrott said, and “pours that rocket fuel into their rocket to lower taxes and launch wars and do Republican stuff.” The rocket never went in the direction that the resentful white people wanted. “It’s not like they can just run on what they’re actually doing. They have to run on ‘Those people are out to get you, and they’re out to get you because you’re white.’ ”
― Elle Reeve, Black Pill: How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society, and Capture American Politics

“Having been a politically aware teen in the South, I was used to people lying to my face that the Civil War was about states’ rights not slavery, that the Confederate flag was about heritage not hate, and that southern opposition to public transportation and public schools was about economics not segregation. But Heimbach was a young guy who admitted that all that was about racism, and that is what he liked about it. I was intrigued. It was like talking to Dr. Evil instead of his slick corporate henchman.”
― Elle Reeve, Black Pill: How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society, and Capture American Politics

“When white nationalists kill people, they tend to kill each other. I said quitting would reduce his risk of being one of those killed.”
― Elle Reeve, Black Pill: How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society, and Capture American Politics

“Time to go full Kali Yuga lads. Accelerate towards destruction and start again,” a 4chan user said in 2017.”
― Elle Reeve, Black Pill: How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society, and Capture American Politics

“The secret of the alt-right is that it’s actually a movement of autistic guys with internet access.”
― Elle Reeve, Black Pill: How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society, and Capture American Politics

“While there is no reason to believe that ASD can cause racism,” Loftin wrote, “ASD as well as other psychiatric conditions can fuel behavior in people that draws them to fringe political movements.”
― Elle Reeve, Black Pill: How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society, and Capture American Politics

“When white nationalists kill people, they tend to kill each other.”
― Elle Reeve, Black Pill: How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society, and Capture American Politics

“There is no more separation between the online world and the real world,” Fred said. It was getting close to midnight, and sports highlights were replaying on a huge screen behind him. “This notion we have that what is happening online, is happening online—is wrong. Everything happening online is happening in reality. Everything happening online is happening in the real world.”
― Elle Reeve, Black Pill: How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society, and Capture American Politics