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The Latin Mass growth post 2005 was not primarily driven by online spaces, it was driven by changes in canon law and existing IRL networks which later had a large online component mostly by tapping into the backlash to pope Francis and later to demand for covid-unconcerned Catholic networks. I was there for much of this and the incorporation of the online component was hugely controversial.
I'd like to hear more about your experience here.
That's fair, but I see this as validating my point with different timing. I'd also very plainly ask if there's a real sense within any Catholic circles - and there could be, this isn't meant to be a leading question - that the online Trad-Cath-o-sphere is, on net, detrimental?
In 2018-2019 there started being large contingents of extremely online young male converts. They didn't fit in very well. Pre-Pope Francis traditional Catholicism, as a movement, had no answer at all; the expectation was that men were in religious life, or else heads of families, with some minor allowance for twenty year olds that were still in college/working on being ready to marry providing that they were connected to an existing large traditionalist family. This was cliquish and unhealthy, but traditional Catholics are not immune to psychotic brainworms. The newcomers often rubbed the locals the wrong way, of course- several got yelled at for hitting on teenagers(in fairness, the teenaged girl/young woman distinction is, uh, not one rad trads are particularly insistent on in other contexts, and is probably not quite as obvious), they were often vulgar by local standards, many were motivated more by political conservatism than the classic motives for traditional Catholics- which are either completely sincere religious motivations, a genuine belief in large families(the average age in IRL rad trad communities is generally middle school, not middle aged... very high fertility rates are part of the program), or moral puritanism- and some didn't seem to realize that they are attempting to join a religion which prides itself on inventing the term 'dogma'. In 2020 this existing tension just kind of blew up into irrelevancy with the sudden influx of... everyone who didn't like their diocese's covid policy(and subsequent growth for the surviving latin masses after TC). The stereotypical tweed and pipesmoke image just generally took a while to integrate newcomers, and while the fourchan types were disproportionately blamed there was lots of frustrations with everyone else too.
The online trad-cath-o-sphere? What do you mean by that? Like Dr Taylor Marshall and lifesitenews have plenty of detractors on the basis of spreading ridiculous conspiracy theories and platforming churchbashing. Taylor Marshall is a nice enough guy in real life, of course, but lots of people who like him as a person and don't even particularly disagree with him would criticize his podcast as Not Helping. Tradcath twitter has the distinction between Nazis who don't believe any Catholic doctrine or go to mass but like the aesthetics and IRL rad trad twitter, both have their critics but the typical IRL rad trad literally doesn't know about the former- they think the complaint about awful rad trads on twitter is, like, the Dimond brothers, and complaints about 'traditional Catholicism as cover for racism' is just libs using their favorite R-word.
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