Are you an NPC? The Stigmatization of Facts and Knowledge in Right-Wing Online Communities.

There are many instances wherein people are discredited and stigmatized because of what they see as being factual, true, or scientific. This paper analyzes how knowledge and fact claims are tied to stigmatization. More specifically, this paper examines how stigmatizers use fact claims to dehumanize and exclude others. The data for this paper is drawn from an online ethnography of two online communities, one for involuntarily celibate (or “incel”) men (incels.is), and the other focused on far-right politics and White supremacy (4chan.org/pol/). Using Link and Phelan’s (2014) Stigma Power framework, I demonstrate how members of these communities use knowledge and fact claims to keep people down (degrade and dehumanize others), keep people in (police in-group members and enforce norms), and keep people away (exclude others and mark them as dangerous). I argue that keeping people down, in, and away work ‘hand in glove’ to discredit and distance others based on fact claims. The paper aims to combine social psychological and science studies perspectives on stigma, while also demonstrating how the stigmatization of knowledge and fact claims can advance polarization and radicalization.