‘’You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end.’’ Matthew 24:6

It is very important to social justice warriors that their systematic invasion and subjugation of previously non-social justice territory is not called a war. After all, war has a negative connotation by the lights of social justice. However, given that the internet hosts a diverse array of subcultures, many of which are explicitly hostile to other subcultures, the continual invasion, subjugation, and consequent appropriation of other cultures by another can only be given one name: war. The ousting of a group of people from their previously occupied territory is an act of violence. It may not have escalated to physical violence, and at present has limited itself to vicious attacks, threats of violence, doxing, and character assassination, which are simply the tactics and tools of a war perpetuated over the internet. However, it is only a matter of time before some act of physical violence is actually carried out.

What will happen? Were physical violence meted out on a SJW, it would be the casus belli for an explicit declaration of war on those communities determined to not sufficiently conform to SJW interests. It appears unlikely such a symmetry holds for their enemies; Jezebel would argue it was justified and good, while more mainstream outlets will sweep it away with a “Well, he had it coming.” The implicit recognition of this fact by the SJW community will almost certainly entail attempts to provoke such a first strike against them. Playing the victim is their uniquely powerful weapon, and frequently even resort to self-harm in order to reify their victimhood. Naturally, it is an irony that SJW’s never suspect their concerted attacks on individuals (my own particularly salient acquaintance with that witnessed here) constitutes an act of violence, but is only the vengeance of justice on those deemed unworthy of decency.

On the one hand, the fomenting of a cultural cyberwar was inevitable. There isn’t a single instance in which distinct cultures, vying for the same territory, haven’t come into conflict. The internet, being a new kind of territory, was originally a kind of anarchist utopia; the communities were small and orderly enough that roughly everyone understood and conformed to the same standards of etiquette. Then came the Eternal September, which saw the migration of a mass of people into this digital territory and the resultant dissolution of those norms as they could no longer be enforced on what was, effectively, displacement by uncultured barbarians. Thus ended the First Golden Age of the Internet, precipitating approximately a decade of Wild West expansion while businesses, the media, and society at large spent some time figuring out just what the internet could and couldn’t do. The Dotcom Bubble was the result of an initial overreach, and quickly tempered the idea that the internet would become the main source of consumption; rather, it was added as but another form of consumption.

Then approached a Second Golden Age, as norms of communication and social networking became established. These primordial communities, to be found at sites like LiveJournal and Xanga, were first established around shared interests in popular culture. Social network sites dedicated to the cultivation and presentation of a digital identity for the masses became mainstream with Myspace, which was rapidly outcompeted by the Schelling point capture strategy of Facebook, which then proceeded to establish its own empire, seeding trade routes through other major social media sites like Twitter and Instagram. And all was well, even if one had to suffer the awkwardness of accepting friend requests from grandmothers who couldn’t tell the difference between messages and commenting on your wall.

But it was not to last. As individuals gained an appreciation for internet subcultures, and began to think of themselves more consciously as associated with not only those communities but their values, the entanglement of identity in digital persona increased the apparent stakes of controlling opinion. On one pole of this spectrum you have the loosely affiliated SJW networks of Tumblr, Gawker, and Salon, and on the other you have the quasi-anarchic and machismo dominated trolling subcultures found at 4chan, Reddit, and SomethingAwful. Each has historically viewed the other with suspicion, and each has their fair share of scalps. The SJW’s have gotten prominent, high status individuals ousted from their positions, and the thought criminals have sown their strife and agony amongst the SJW’s. However, these have been typified by ad hoc, loosely coordinated raids. Never before has a resilient internet subculture been apparently conquered by the enemy and its original inhabitants sent into exile.

What to explain this seemingly surprising turn of events? After all, given the penchant of the trolls-turned-thought criminals for, well, trolling, it is almost surprising the first de facto takeover of a community was managed by the SJW’s. Given the typically ad hoc status of trolling raids by those from communities centered around sites like 4chan, and the non-ideological motivation (after all, other past targets of raids include sites like Reddit and the innocuous Habbo), it only makes sense that the motivation to form a community resilient to SJW attack and takeover wouldn’t have formed until a de facto act of war took place.

This de facto act of war was not initially launched against 4chan. Rather, the SJW’s had as their target the civilian community of gamers. These were individuals who had no quarrel about whether games and plain competition were politically correct; so far as they understood it, video games are a legitimately non-political pastime, and don’t need to be subject to the ideology of political correctness. The gamers were, essentially, a peaceful community who considered themselves neutral. They failed to realize that their insufficiently political character is what marked them as a target, leading to the concerted efforts of SJW’s, especially as headed by popular characters like Anita Sarkeesian, to subjugate them to the expected conformity of political correctness. Considering the paradigmatically male character of gaming, in hindsight it is perhaps no surprise the gaming community would’ve been chosen as a target, despite there being communities that consciously and explicitly considered themselves hostile to SJW ideals.

This marks the end of the tense peace that had otherwise persisted throughout the internet. Increasingly, you will not be allowed to remain neutral; unwillingness to identify with SJW ideals, after all, is reason for attack in their eyes. Being merely dopey and relatively easy to upset, on the other hand, made you a target for trolls, which is a non-ideological form of attack and relatively innocuous in comparison. Now it is known that SJW’s seek to dominate the internet for themselves and to impose their ideological uniformity on everyone. (Denying this makes you a target, which proves my point.)

Where will this go next? I’m not sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned to physical violence (or at least a hoax thereof), with the resultant outcry in the media and the potential involvement of legal authorities for settling disputes (undoubtedly in favor of the SJW’s). An Orwellian fate can be seen on the digital horizon which, though it needn’t necessarily take place, has presented itself as a real possibility.