How I Was Red-Pilled, and Survived It

This pieces originally appeared on VICE Netherlands.

If you’ve somehow managed to exist on the internet without ever coming across these toxic ideas, red-pilling refers to the process of becoming “aware of the true nature of the world”: That social hierarchies are natural and justified and that – surprise, surprise – white cishet men are supposed to rule the world.

The term comes from the movie The Matrix (1999), where protagonist Neo is offered the choice between taking the blue pill and living in a pretty but fake world, or the red pill and seeing “the truth”. Ironically, directors Lilly and Lana Wachowski, who both later transitioned, meant the story to represent the revelation that you can exist outside the gender binary.

But in the early 2010s, far-right online communities began appropriating the concept to spread alt-right ideology, skyrocketing its use in the lead-up to the election of Donald Trump, between 2015 and 2016. Since then, red-pilling hasn’t left us – from Elon Musk to Andrew Tate, influential misogynists have legitimised these ideas and further spread this hatred across the web.

Falling for this type of reactionary views repackaged as edgy and new internet content is unfortunately pretty easy – even if you’re well-adjusted. We spoke to three young men who’ve fallen deep down the rabbit hole but also managed to climb out of it. All three have agreed to tell their stories on the condition of anonymity.

“I grew up working-class. At 16, I came across the right-wing side of the internet – think of Ben Shapiro and Steven Crowder’s YouTube videos, which claim to be based on ‘facts and logic’. These people are very good at manipulating statistics so that you take everything they say for face value.

An example of this is the so-called 13/52 theory, which claims that while African Americans make up 13 percent of the American population, 52 percent of all prisoners in the U.S. are Black. This inaccurate information is presented to you without taking into account the socio-economic status of many Black people in the US, or the systematic racism of the police.

My dad is Antillean, so this gave me some kind of urge to prove I was ‘one of the good ones’. I walked around with a feeling of guilt and insecurity, I felt like a bad person because of my dark skin. I also wasn’t in touch with my father – something that left a lot of space for disappointment and hatred.

I descended deeper into incel forums like on 4chan –where sexist and racist jokes are constantly made – which felt very edgy at that age. White supremacy theories are shared and glorified openly in these forums: You’re literally taught that Black people want to bring down the ‘free West’.

When I was 18, I started to think differently. It’s quite funny that the media influenced me to both get into these ideas, but also bounce back from them. When you hate on ‘dirty Muslim terrorists', but see that white nationalists are also involved in shootings, you start questioning your thinking. YouTube videos by Second Thought or Hunter Avallone helped me a lot – Avallone used to have extreme right ideas and eventually started making progressive content.

Looking back at that period of time, I think loneliness was a big factor in my behaviour. I wanted to be a part of something, even if it was this dark side of the internet. What I see is a lot of young guys would rather join the ‘strong’ men with Bugattis than be associated with left-wing vegans. But those are dangerous places to get lost in.”– Nigel, 23, is a working student

“When I was 16, I behaved badly towards women. I used to slut-shame girls who had sex, saying things like, ‘You'd fuck anyone, wouldn't you?’ Not only did that feel normal to me at the time, I honestly thought I was doing them a favour. I was also convinced that feminism had gone too far, that women were over-the-top, and I didn't want to take them seriously because they weren't as smart as men.In my final year of high school, I was in a class with a girl who was very good at analysis. I saw it as my job to always come up with counter arguments when she talked about something. In my point of view, she was a man-hater, because she always brought women into every conversation that I thought was in essence about men. In those discussions, I was always incredibly unkind and pretended she was stupid. But she actually understood everything better than I did – I was just an asshole.

I felt at home on the Men’s Rights Reddit page – the consensus there is that men are threatened by feminism. Gamergate [a misogynistic online harassment campaign against feminism and diversity in video games] was happening at that time. Feminist blogger and gamer Anita Sarkeesian became a target and was ridiculed in hundreds of comments and posts on Reddit. I thought that was fair, because gamers are men and the free market produces the best games. I thought games objectively portrayed the relationship between men and women, and that women weren't able to understand the objective world. Basically, the conservative ideas I grew up with were only strengthened by my internet bubble.

When I was 18, I started to have some doubts. I went to university where I met gay people and also started having conversations with women, who turned out to have reasoned opinions after all. It may sound stupid, but in my mind, women and gays were almost a different kind of people.

Literature and YouTube channels like Contrapoints helped me to get out of the far-right dark hole. I was interested in philosophy too, but I was only into conservative thinkers – then I read Simone de Beauvoir and thought, ‘Holy shit, women have good ideas, too!’ That’s when I also started to think more about sexism and racism in society. I’ve now completely shifted my perspective: I’m a politically active socialist with feminist views.

I didn’t have decent sex until I was 20, but always thought it was because of my partners. When I started seeing women as actual human beings instead of objects, it immediately led to good experiences and romantic relationships.

Nowadays someone like Andrew Tate is popular among young boys and it’s really sad to witness. I think I would have been one of them if I were 16 now – those young Tate fans are a sign of a larger problem in society.” – Leon, 26, works in engineering

“I grew up as the child of two educated parents without spectacular careers, in a townhouse in the city. My radicalisation started when I was about 18, on two fronts.

On the one hand, I started watching YouTube videos showing a bunch of aggressive women yelling completely ‘unreasonable’ things, which amounted to, ‘Look how whacky these feminists and social justice warriors are’. That’s how I ended up in what’s called the 'alt-right pipeline' – videos of YouTubers who comment and rebut screaming feminists with short and simplistic answers.

The picture portrayed in these videos is simple: Left-wing people are completely insane and shout the most idiotic things stemming purely from emotion, and call anyone who opposes them a racist. Then, right-wing people negate all their arguments very rationally and effortlessly.

Besides those videos, I spent a lot of time on Hiddenlol. On the site, which is no longer active, people used to share a lot of memes about Syrian refugees who came to Europe around 2015. If you see pictures of migrants dubbed with catch phrases like 'invasion' day in, day out and you keep following news reports about it, sooner or later you’ll get the idea that a huge plague is coming your way.

I was less interested in misogyny, but you can see that red pill ideology is all linked. If you join one front, you automatically get fed other topics, too. I got bombarded with ideas like how only a small group of men get all the women and nothing is left for the rest. You think, ‘Will there even be anything left for me?’ You start to see women as a kind of product that’s scarce and sought after – a puzzle to solve in order to get laid, instead of people with feelings and dreams.

How did I get out? I just became less insecure. My education at the university was picking up and I got into my first relationship with my current girlfriend in 2017. When she became my girlfriend, that whole ‘fewer girls for me’ problem disappeared.

At the same time, I also came across leftist YouTubers like Three Arrows, who put a lot of time and effort into invalidating those right-wing ideas. The videos show that those alt-right guys don't even read the reports they quote. I suddenly realised I was listening to clowns. The film American History X was also an eye opener for me. I understood that all that fear and hatred is of no use to me. Slowly, I found myself drifting to the left and realised how messed up capitalism is.

So, movies and positive influencers actually helped after all, but the most important thing for me was the love from the people around me – the kind that makes you feel confident about yourself. That's exactly the tricky thing about those alt-right communities, they’ll do everything they can to keep you insecure and isolated.” – Vincent, 26, is a student