In the US, online political clashes are often better understood as a battle of internet subcultures. Two major groups on the far-right, while frequently lumped together, are worlds apart: the traditional Christian nationalists and the nihilistic ‘black-pilled’ wing of the ‘groyper’ scene.

The simplest way to frame it is as the ‘builders’ versus the ‘burners’.

The builders—the Christian nationalists—are still trying to construct something. They have a vision for an explicitly Christian nation, founded on order, hierarchy, and a return to what they see as ‘proper’ social roles. Their strategy is institutional: win elections, pass laws, stack the courts, and capture the school boards. Their language centres on ‘restoration’ and ‘revival’. Even when their rhetoric gets apocalyptic, the end goal is to use state power to enforce a particular moral order.

The burners, however, are orbiting a completely different sun. This is a much younger, more terminally online crowd, full of streamers and internet personalities. Their worldview is steeped in the cynicism of incel forums, gamer culture, and a deeply ironic, ‘edgelord’ sense of humour.

The crucial distinction is their profound loss of faith in reform. The black pilled wing is utterly convinced that our institutions, our culture, and even people themselves are beyond saving. The ‘black pill’ is a metaphor for accepting a brutal ‘truth’: that decline is irreversible, making despair the only rational response. If nothing can be redeemed, the only creative act left is to tear it all down. This accelerationism operates less like a political programme and more like a social physics, deliberately pressing on every social fault line—from race to gender—just to see what breaks. It is, essentially, the worship of things falling apart.

The bizarre, cryptic memes are central because, for them, the style is the substance. The meme factory serves several functions at once.

It’s a fiercely effective recruitment tool. A darkly funny, high-contrast image travels much faster and wider than a dense policy document. It’s also wrapped in the Kevlar vest of irony, which offers plausible deniability; if you’re offended, they were ‘just joking’. Finally, it works to desensitise its audience. Shock is used like a muscle. The first time you see something awful, you flinch. By the hundredth time, an idea that was once unthinkable feels perfectly normal within the group. This is why their aesthetic is such a chaotic mash-up of cartoon frogs and nihilistic jokes. The underlying message is that nothing matters.

You can start to see the appeal for those who feel exiled from the traditional games of status—dating, university, a good career. It offers a cheap and easy form of belonging where attention is the only currency.

This helps explain why real-world incidents are often followed by posts loaded with strange symbols. The act itself is a performance for an online audience, where the primary aim is gaining in-group status by turning reality into a toxic, private joke.

This doesn’t make it harmless, not for a second. A politics that only wants to break things can still inspire catastrophe, because its only measure of success is destruction.

The antidote requires us to refuse the seductive pull of nihilism and call the black pill what it is: a permission slip for cruelty hiding behind a mask of sophistication. After that, it’s about doing the quiet, unglamorous work of building real meaning and belonging in our lives—in places where empty spectacle can’t compete.

When you get right down to it, Christian nationalism is a plan to rule; black pilled accelerationism is a plan to ruin. Once you grasp that polarity, the memes stop looking like mysterious runes and start looking like what they are: billboards for a politics of nothing.

If you are interested in the world of memes here’ a great place to start https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/