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The alt-lite is not alright
tl;dr Nick Fuentes and Lauren Southern are at points where their careers look far less promising now, some words on that
The alt lite was a catch-all term of sorts at a point during the peak of the alt-right which came crashing down post-Charlotessville in 2017. The alt-lite included people who would wilfully ignore the idea of Western identitarianism on the basis of ethnicity and support every other position or offshoots around it. So the kinda folks who would talk about "Western Civilization", "Western values" whilst being more tolerant of the actual alt-right than neocons. The prime example of an alt-lite figure being milo, others included Mike Cernovich, Lauren Southern, and Lauren Chen to name a few. There are two people who I will focus on today, both were not explicitly alt-right, in fact were known for fighting with the alt-right.
Nick Fuentes for now being made into a caricature of what the average person thinks is an alt-righter and Lauren Southern who unlike the other members of the alt-lite or alt-right forgot to become a fed, allegedly.
Nick is the leader of a paleoconservative movement named America First which is defined by these values which can be summed as retvrn to 1950s if you want a briefer version. He began streaming around 2015 and was his views crystallised around 2017 where he would argue with people in and around the internet bloodsport. He has been caught with trans pornography opened on his browswer a few times alongside texts and interactions with trans girls. This is well known among his former allies and was brought to light by chris brunet recently in a series of rants against him. This was further compounded by the recent leaks of streamer Destiny being caught on camera sucking a guy off. Destiny is also our bridge to the other character at play here. Again the person in the leaks is obviously not Nick but his previous acts of cozying upto Catboy Kami, watching trans porn, being a literal incel etc dont help his case at all.
Lauren Southern was a big alt-lite figure, she recently worked with Tenet Media which was taking money from Russia, the people working also included Tim Pool though the primary media person involved with the financial side was another alt-lite Canadian Lauren, Lauren Chen. Lauren Southern was down, she had been divorced from her Asian husband who she had a kid with, said husband also turned out to be a literal fed. She was doing fairly well until her hiatus. She made a comeback after her hiatus and it went badly on both personal and professional levels. For starters, she was summoned alongside Lauren Chen and testified in person. The most interesting reaction towards this was by Richard Spencer who like Milo has been outed as being a fed in public court documents. If the threat of jail time is not enough, she also wrecked whatever goodwill she had by having had an affair with the same man Nick Fuentes was being rumored with, Destiny. The leaks are painful to read.
I bring these incidents up not to gossip about two people. People yearn for ideals to strive towards, heroes of sorts. Those studying music look up to Mozart rightfully and would be visibly disgusted upon finding out about his scat fetish accusations. E celebs are considerably dumber and likely worse people than Mozart. Both Lauren and Nick are people who played a game of Motte and Bailey, Nick far more than Lauren, both have had run-ins with the government (Nick was an agitator during jan 6 who was on a no fly list but never tried, whilst people who followed his orders were, go figure) and are terrible people in their personal lives.
The "online right" is being allowed to torch people slightly on its left and it seems to be working. The consequences of being an e-celeb are not for the faint-hearted, most of them end up hiding their issues well. It is also a good reminder as to why putting the weight of your entire "movement" on one man is risky. Nick during 2019 effectively made Turning Point USA shift their opinions slightly to the right after constant harassment via his followers in college campuses during Charlie Kirks speaking tours, his low-status behavior ultimately came through. Marx despite being outed as a person with multiple character flaws did not dent marxism very much as ultimately his ideas were enough to the point where people did champion them in the 20th century. America First lacks any sort of intellectual rigor is simply MAGA but how bad faith actors want you think it is.
I wanted to write at length about the crashing and burning of various e celebs from the post gamergate era yet there is not much to be gained from it. Most if not all of them only served as introductions to the various factions of "the right". The recurring themes were fairly apparent, being an online personality will eventually cause real world harm as you care about what others think online, many people actively run gay ops just to screw you over. Political actions have always had consequences, lowering the barrier to entry does not shield you from them, you won't get crushed by a dictator for being a dissenter but you will get hurt and see people you call "normies" doing better in life, which still hurts a lot. A lust for validation thwarts your internal psyche too. Nick for instance really is not all that different from the alt right and is by all accounts far less aware of his own religious beliefs than atheist Richard Spencer, in some ways he succeeded in hiding his similarities to other identitarians long enough by being fine with current American demographics but his position is built on shaky grounds given birth rates as of this year. Lauren who publicly talked about family values at the time ended up having affairs with many on the right if you go by the words of her ex-colleagues and was cheating on her husband with a streamer. Both of these people would have been better off had they never turned to the internet for validation.
Explain like I am a 55 year old non-American non-4Chan non-always-online person?
I think I know who Southern Lauren is back from Gamergate (but searching her I find a video that she fled a tradwife life because of her horrible husband?), and I sometimes hear about this Destiny guy (why is it noteworthy that he is gay?), but I have no idea what he is or for what politics he has (was he some StarCraft streamer?) and Nick Fuentes seems to be some rightwingnut troll? What does it mean “to be a fed”? Is this just a diss or a really serious allegation?
I think there should be a more extensive KnowYourMeme or outOfTheLoop explanation?
"A fed" is someone working for the federal government. In this context, it's an accusation either of being a federal informant or a federal agent, most likely the former, and is an allegation being made seriously.
To add some more context in right wing circles (I would also assert this) many of the most prominent "kinetic" actions of extreme right wingers seem to be full of "feds" if not majority feds. Occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping both probably started with more feds than not. Similar with a lot of the Islamic terrorist plots that the FBI "foiled".
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