Into the Ether(net)

How terror shapes the future of the internet and thus, the world

“I was sitting at the aquarium at the dolphin show with my daughter and all I could think about is how we were sitting ducks with our backs to the door.” Is a comment left on a TikTok video I made nearly two years ago discussing the bones of what is now this massive essay. If you’re one of the many people who encouraged me to write it, thank you. This may be the proudest I’ve ever felt sharing a piece— I hope you enjoy it.

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Three exits.

My first thought in every room is to quickly identify them; the cataloguing doesn’t take me much time. Soon after, a rudimentary plan sparks, nothing precise really, it’s all rounded numbers. How many people are in this space? What size would the scared mob be? How many feet to my nearest exit points? Ideally, less than 20 and how soon after the first shot fires will I move? Almost immediately. These plans come easy to me now but when I try to recall when it started, I always draw a blank. Maybe it’s protection, my brain shielding how long I’ve considered guarding my mortality from this specific threat, or pity from my nervous system, already overwhelmed with the daily task of easing endless questions like am I real? Is this all life is? decided to spare itself (inversely me), from mulling over more questions that don’t have pretty answers. It almost doesn’t matter when this hyper vigilance started as long as it pays off, makes it easier to potentially survive too often of a threat.

As of today, November 13th, there have been 458 mass shootings in 2024¹ in the US and by year’s end, we’re projected to see a number over 600. That’s an average of almost two mass shootings a day.

In a world of uncertainty, the probability of experiencing a mass shooting feels more assured than having basic needs met, which is, grim to say the least.

The threat of death via gun violence isn’t exclusive to the United States, upwards of 71% of global homicides occur with the use of firearms², but mass shootings, defined by Gun Violence Archive as³ “…a minimum of four victims shot, either injured or killed, not including any shooter who may also have been killed or injured in the incident.”, is a phenomenon which is almost uniquely American. It’s a permanent fixture to discourse about the nation, and what makes us standout from other high earning countries in the Empire. Though much of its violence is exported to the global south, a sizable amount is diffused into the civilian class as well— an as above, so below ordeal.

And it’s felt deeply, when surveyed⁴, about 79% of the adult population in the US experience stress due to the possibility of a mass shooting and almost a third (33%) stated this fear prevents them from going to certain places or events. Unfortunately, such habit changes attempting to assuage these fears are not available to all members of the US population. The majority of US teens⁵, close to 60%, have mass shooting anxiety specific to school, and in light of the numbers, they have every reason to feel this way. As of November 11th⁶, there have been 76 school shootings this year, its prevalence has more than doubled in a decade. When everyone feels hopeless about the same problem it’s bound to be addressed… right? The answer is complicated, and like most things under late stage Capitalism, the “solutions” cropping up are not only politically motivated, but profit breaking.

In the last decade or so, in response to mass shooting concerns, a new industry has appeared: The Active Shooter Defense Enterprise. The industry’s largest supporters are the usual suspects, current & former law enforcement, surveillance tech (which is… most tech to be frank), and Big Gun™️. In a press statement after Biden’s address on gun control, the NRA⁷ (National Rifle Association), stated

“The National Rifle Association of America supports substantive policies and real solutions that will make a difference […]The NRA has long supported securing our schools so that our teachers and children will be safe.”

The safety measures supported, conveniently, don’t address gun accessibility, but rather equipment and technology that can be utilized in the event of a mass shooting, all of which cost a pretty penny and pennies are being spent. According to research done by Omdia⁸, American schools are anticipated to spend 3.5 billion dollars annually on “armed shooter defense security”. These measures range anywhere from renovating schools with bulletproof material, installing AI supported body scanners and crisis alert systems or specialized door stops meant to keep people out or in, depending on the style.

Despite the promises these companies make to concerned school administrators and parents, the technology is already proving to be inconsistent and faulty. The Charlotte Observer⁹ wrote an expose on Centegix, one of the companies offering AI video surveillance and a crisis alert system that won a bid with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district; multiple times since its installation when the alert system was meant to deploy, it failed— even still, when the alarms are deemed “false” (even if by company error), the school is charged a sizable fee. Despite this, CMS continues to employ Centegix.

In Cobb County, GA, a similar scenario occurred¹⁰ where “AlertPoint”, a $5 million crisis management service’s server fried and sent alerts to one of the largest school districts in the country, prompting lockdowns and terror for students. Despite its evidenced inefficacy, these systems and services are still being lobbied for by special interest groups¹¹ (such as SIA) and community members seeking answers to these violent ails—Congress approved an additional $300 million for school safety measures such as these just this year.

With the capacity to curtail mass shootings (both in/outside of schools) seeming low, insidious players have made moves that seem isolated but when presented all together, broadly serve a related agenda. The late James Brown crooned “This is a man’s, man’s, man’s world” for decades on the global stage… and the investment in maintaining that reality can be creative— we’re seeing just how so with the rise of the TradWife.

“There’s no such thing as being in the wrong place at the wrong time because how would I know if I’m at the wrong place, at the wrong time, you know?”

Aalayah Eastman- Parkland 18’ shooting survivor

Bread, Babies and Bibles

When the story of Hannah Neeleman, community appointed “Queen of the Tradwives” of Ballerina Farms broke, the conversations that ensued were inescapable. The Times of London¹² was able to snag a rare peek behind the curtain by visiting Ballerina Farms HQ, a sprawling 328-acre homestead nestled in Kamas, Utah where Hannah, her husband Daniel, and their 8 children live. On this property, the children are raised, homeschooled and taught subsistence skills meant to steer them into adulthood healthy, resourceful and most importantly, aligned with the right views. The reporting on the Ballerina Farms matriarch by The Times took what previously felt intimate, thus innocuous to her audience and placed it on a pressure plate, deglamorizing the “homeliness” of it all in favor of a more concerned view.

Hannah, 34, found her strategically apolitical lifestyle content under scrutiny as people, namely women, asked just how much this “dream” cost her, and whether its broadcast served any particular agenda. I’d say, yes.

Tradwives are defined as¹³ “ a woman who believes in and practices traditional gender roles and marriages. Some may choose to take a homemaking role within their marriage, and others leave their careers to focus on meeting their family's needs in the home.”

The popularity of the term seems to have origins in 2018 and is broadly, a western phenomenon. It seeks to draw from past eras such as the 50’s when the homemaker was valorized and broadly poses appeal for women (usually white, usually young) who’ve found themselves fatigued by what they consider feminism’s demands and the expectations of women under Capitalism in modern times.

The appeal of the Tradwife lifestyle in part, is the assumed reclamation of time and labor— instead of being confined to a desk for 40 years, why not raise a handful of children until adulthood and enjoy an earlier “retirement” than your peers? Instead of crying about the decaying job market you’re forced to compete in, why not let your man bring home the bacon and you cook it? It seems good and well divorced from its historical context, but as I discussed in There Was Only Turf, the women who serve as inspiration for this movement felt foxholed into it with little escape— we see alimony’s expansion in the US during the 19th century and beyond¹⁴ because women couldn’t hold property and often found themselves separated from spouses with little financial reliability. With a few decades of distance, the preceding circumstances and consequences of the lifestyle have fallen out of the general consciousness, which serve its biggest champions, white nationalism.

The face of the TradWife movement is formulaic: thin, white (or light) and pious, however unassuming that quality is presented. The biggest names attached to this lifestyle (and thus, politic) speak to its intention and racial exclusivity.

This was the topic of curiosity for Seyward Darby¹⁵, author of, Sisters In Hate: American Women and White Extremism. She found, having spent months with various women with power and influence within the white nationalist and alt-right movement, that recruiting women was paramount for the movements expansion and survival, and that this effort must be led by other women. The promotion of being a tradwife at a time of rising white christian nationalism isn’t an accident but rather a design; there’s a reason engaging with tradwife content online has the algorithm quickly offering anti-science, anti-miscegenation, anti-secular material. They’re closely related. Darby observes,

“Tradwives and white nationalists share core objectives (more babies), myths (America’s moral decline), and iconography (happy heterosexual families). Such close proximity, particularly on social media makes the exchange of ideas a straightforward prospect.” pg. 156

Almost every woman she spent time with during this book’s development were led to the alt-right with tradwife content online. These were women who’d oftentimes previously considered themselves liberal and/or permissive yet felt too helpless to craft a dignified life. Lana, one of the strongest faces for women of the alt-right, observed this connection and uses it to cajole more women to the movement by presenting it as a place they could regain agency.

“… Lana amassed a constellation of white-nationalist women. The particulars of their stories varied, but the broad strokes were consistent: They had all felt lost, besieged, empty, probing, insecure, frustrated, or unmoored. White nationalism has transmuted their greivances or anger into a lofty purpose. When she invited them on Radio 3Fourteen, Lana gave the women a stage and validation. The effect, it seemed, was intoxicating and emboldening.” pg. 218

Online Tradwife content creators occupy a similar space. Their editorialized lives are presented as a respite from “girlbossing” with simple beliefs that often promote their audiences’ curiosity and those questions usually have answers within an existing religious and/or social structure. The biggest faces of the Tradwives of TikTok are all Mormon, a notoriously anti-Black and misogynistic denomination of Christianity¹⁶ who encourage their members to draw in initiates with a practice referred to as “Friendshipping”¹⁷.

The practice of “friendshipping” is straight forward, simply interact with and befriend people with little to no connection to the church and allow your life to be testimony to its benefits. They discourage plain evangelizing and instead offer tips¹⁸: keep them informed, bake a treat, seek common interests— sound familiar? The best recruitment tool is to refuse it is recruitment and in the age of militant curation and aesthetic development, it’s the easiest it’s ever been. Every one is seeking an “era” to occupy and glamorous, beautiful, simple living homemaker is appealing, in large, due to its feminine faces. Simply put by Darby,

“Like many digital influencers, tradwives present themselves as both aspirational and relatable. The message is simple enough: You know you want to be like us, and you can if you try.” pg. 154

The promotion of a lifestyle and ideology conveniently incompatible with racial equity, feminism, and queerness to name a few, offers these women a crusade, a worthy cause to put their energy toward while maintaining their position in the home. Children are the fulcrum of this work.

“We learn we have to care for your loved ones. We have to care for them like they’re going to be gone tomorrow. You know, life can be too short. It’s unfortunate we had to learn it so young.”

Nick Walczak- Chardon High 12’ shooting survivor

My Kids, My Choice

Parental rights are a hot button issue for conservatives and the majority of these efforts are led by women. Groups such as Moms For Liberty (M4L), Citizens Defending Freedom and Focus on the Family extend great efforts toward curtailing progressive policy and weakening existing civil rights, all in the name of, “parental rights”. A perusal of any of their sites and mission statements offers you insight into their current enemies, including but not limited to: Sex Ed, SEL (social emotional learning), CRT (Critical Race Theory), Gender Ideology, expanding homeschool protections, school choice and Restorative Justice.

Homeschooling in particular has seen a boom in the years since this form of “advocacy” grew to popularity. In my home state of New York for instance, homeschool enrollment has increased by 178%, with charter enrollment increasing by 125%, public school (the alleged hotbed for the radicalizing of children) however, has seen a 13% decrease in enrollment in the past 10 years.

With the increase in homeschooling and decrease in childcare services¹⁹ (which range in price from $5,327 to $17,171 annually²⁰), parents find themselves burdened with the demands of ensuring there’s steady childcare and education for their children, this responsibility is a gendered one more often than not. The “Parental Work Disruption Index” developed by KPMG²¹ found that an estimated 1.2-1.5 million workers either shorten working hours or miss work entirely each month due to low childcare access, 90% of those workers are women.

One study²² found that the rising cost of childcare resulted in an estimated 13% decline in the employment of mothers with children under 5. With women being forced home due to lack of childcare, homeschooling becomes more appealing and homemaking regains its honor. It’s a sacrifice, yes, but one you’d make a thousand times over because that’s what a good mother would do, right? There’s a reason the “parental rights advocacy” groups are run and organized by conservatives: families structured heteronormatively with discontent SAHM’s are primed to join a “righteous” cause— what’s more righteous than protecting children? And if in the process she finds herself empowered by these efforts… it’s icing on the cake.

The foundation of parental rights (within this framework) really invites parents to look at their children as inherently proprietary, a perma-owned class only liberated (usually) with entrance into adulthood. This belief has a long legacy. In Trust Kids! Stories on Youth Autonomy and Confronting Adult Supremacy, Toby Rollo writes,

“The young represent the originary exploited class. As far back as the historical record goes in the West, the bodies and labor of children were viewed as belonging to adults. Children were the first form of property, and mass child labor was central to every agricultural and industrial revolution—to the production of surplus resources along with the amassing and centralization of wealth.” pg. 161

Parents are frightened, all too aware of the dangers having their children out of their presence for too long pose and these special interest groups monopolize on that fear compounded by often ill-addressed latent bias. Like most extremist causes, the “problems” are presented as all-encompassing and malicious, a direct attack on families livelihood and inversely, the solutions require violent excision of the “issues”, be it, media or people themselves.

These efforts have largely been successful as well. As of today²³, 1,128 titles have been targeted with over 400 attempts to censor library materials and services in 2024 alone. These groups, often in collaboration with conservative lawmakers, intend to collapse infrastructure that doesn’t align with white christian nationalist views using children as the trojan horse.

Just as before, children are a useful tool whether for literal labor or to serve as a compassionate population policy can be pushed using. In pursuit of near total control of what children are exposed to (further removing them from mostly theoretical agency), parents can wage war against anything and anyone considered counterculture, namely: the LGBTQIA+ community and sex workers.

“I think the fear is what made me miss out the most.”

Emma Nees- Freeman 17’ shooting survivor

All Roads Lead to Sex

Since its earliest days, sex has shaped the internet. This history is the primary point of study in How Sex Changed the Internet and the Internet Changed Sex by Samantha Cole. In the text, we come to understand rather quickly that the internet can’t be divorced from sex, as its modernization was almost always occurring due to the need to innovate how erotic labor was performed. Whether through product and software development, payment processing or cultural output, sex is inextricable from the internet’s legacy and function. As the internet expanded and centralized, attacks on sex’s presence on it grew.

The information highway is an easy target for censorship, in part due to its accessibility. According to Statista²⁴, there are 5.52 billion internet users, 5.22 billion of them possessing social media, that’s 63%²⁵ of the global population. Over²⁶ 90% of the adolescent population in the US has a smartphone and the majority use social media platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat to commune and share. Social media, like much of the Internet, is a mixed age space, and with the loss of active third spaces coined by Ray Oldenburg²⁷ to mean “your third place is where you can relax in public, where you encounter familiar faces and make new acquaintances…”, oftentimes the only place teens can exchange with peers for free.

If we concede to the internet being an inherently mixed space, then the space finds itself required to accommodate the youngest of users, even in supposed “age-restricted” spaces. This logic is used to increase the breath of the surveillance state and push anti-sex action such as criminalizing all forms of sex work (on/offline) and abolishing internet porn. For many pro-censorship advocates, sexual material and sexuality is interchangeable. It stems from the same foundation: that what is overtly sexual (or believed to be) should die out, and if that’s impossible, it should persist silently out of view.

We can see this belief permeated throughout lobbying efforts fronted by religious, conservative institutions such as Exodus Cry, Fight The New Drug and NCOSE (National Center of Sexual Exploitation), who rebranded from Morality in Media to appear less religiously motivated. These groups use the traumas survived by children, trafficking and sexual violence survivors to push a radical agenda. One that says sex is a threat to the safety of children and thus, the internet and should be staunchly regulated. One of the easiest ways to achieve this is to push for amendment of Section 230²⁸ legislation extrapolated from the Communications Decency Act of 96’, some of the most draconian legislation brought forth in US history. Section 230, a measly 26 words, currently determine the future of constitutional rights to free speech and the livelihood of sex workers. It reads,

"No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider."

To be clear, it doesn’t absolve companies of criminal liability in the event of illegal or harmful content being uploaded (a feature amended by SESTA/FOSTA), but rather asserts that the person ultimately responsible for the content is the person who uploaded it, not the hosting site. This bit of legislation supports all free speech on the internet. It’s what allows for sites such as Yelp, Reddit, X (formerly Twitter) etc. to exist and foster user generated communication. Without the protection of Section 230, these sites would greatly limit or bar user generated content because it’s not worth the potential of legal culpability. It’s this very legislation that’s a target of groups like NCOSE²⁹ who say they want it “radically reformed” but frequently platform players calling for its repeal.

The crusade to abolish sex work is a shared goal amongst conservatives and radical feminists alike, leading to collaboration between the two across the decades³⁰. The refusal to engage with the realities of sex/work as a question of labor rather than morality means the only people they need to consult on abolition and criminalization, are each other. The through line is clear and awfully paternalistic, the people engaged in the “harm” aren’t considered reliable narrators on what exactly is harmful, and subsequently, how to mitigate that harm. This logic is applied similarly to deny Queer & Trans people the right to a dignified public existence.

Language is shifted strategically in order to argue that one’s very existence (be it as a sex worker, trans individual, etc.) is inherently indecent and thus nefarious. When lobbying these causes and sourcing more public support, this is taken into account. For instance, in 2014 anti-prostitution group Demand Abolition had internal documents leaked³¹ to the press that stated

“…framing the Campaign’s key target as sexual slavery might garner more support and less resistance, while framing the Campaign as combating prostitution may be less likely to mobilize similar levels of support.”

When attempting to curtail marginalized people with few rights and protections already, the optics matter. In such instances, people need an easily identified villain for the hero to save. The well meaning civilian is less inclined to question abolishing “sexual slavery” vs “prostitution” because slavery is universally acknowledged as bad, people feel comfortable hating it. Saving someone who’s enslaved is morally sound, always, yet the whore comes with more interrogation because of their occupations moral ambiguity. For the civilian class, it’s as much about what sex/work (and thus the whore) represents symbolically as the material realities the whore is working to survive. If the language associated with the prostitute has clear criminal connotations though, then those complex questions are flattened, in deference to law & order— this tactic is widely successful and continues to expand.

It’s why we see it deployed in conversations discussing queer and transgender folk, attaching “groomers”³², a universally agreed upon term for predator onto them, to push violent policy and suppress solidarity from other groups. It’s hard to join the opposition when they’ve been framed as lewd, dirty and to some extent, primitive. This matters greatly because it offers the contrast people are seeking when making “moral” decisions, a way to say “this is what we’re protecting you from” and across the aisle, they’ve positioned children who by default are vulnerable. Even if you have hangups about the methodology, you’ll concede to the presence of a threat, and that’s all they need to move forward with annihilationist policies.

It’s the legs of current Vice President, Kamala Harris’ seminal legislation Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act and Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, also known as SESTA/FOSTA which served as her senatorial debut of sorts, and made clear she cared not for the safety of sex workers, who’d been publicly loud about its dangers if passed. Prior to then, President Donald Trump signing it into law, Backpage was raided and shuttered, despite cooperating with federal investigations and independently addressing trafficking concerns.

After the bill’s passing in 2018, numerous sites disappeared (such as Backpage & Craigslist Personals section) or upended as many sex workers off their platforms as they could, even if services weren’t being advertised. SESTA/FOSTA had just shredded through Section 230’s protection and provided a caveat: you’re not liable for user generated content, unless there’s suspected exploitation on your platform then you are liable. It’s like if you let a friend borrow your car, didn't know they committed a hit and run in it, and still, you were arrested for vehicular homicide. With that possibility, how likely are you to loan the car again? Even if the platform has no knowledge of trafficking and/or sexual exploitation occurring on their site, they’re held liable, spooking the majority of the internet into shunning sex workers entirely.

The community impact was nearly immediate, with thousand’s livelihood erased literally overnight. In a study done since, SESTA/FOSTA³³ has been shown to increase upwards of 74% of sex worker’s economic instability and led to increased client violence for 34%. Not only did the takedown erase the modes of advertisement, but targeted many sites used in the community for safety measures such as vetting and got many booted from payment processors³⁴ such as VISA & Mastercard. Well established “bad johns” list were scrubbed, and without the safety the internet afforded sex workers to be discerning with clientele, many had to resort back to street based work and quickie negotiations, increasing the risk of criminality and violence.

The legislation hasn’t shown to be effective for curtailing sex trafficking or exploitation of children online, but is a gold mine for censorship and further surveillance by the police state. Numerous bills are currently attempting to use its legacy to make it even easier to suppress and remove traces of sex, sexuality and free sexual expression from the internet. Currently, KOSA (The Kids Online Safety Act) and EARN IT (The Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies) Act attempt to further degrade Section 230 by applying its protections discriminatingly via an unelected commission³⁵ tasked with writing best practices, all of which conveniently bar speech and content of LGBTQIA+, sex work and reproductive health (namely abortion) origins. It would be a disastrous blow to remaining free speech legislation and attempt to eradicate sex or the sexed entirely. Public support of these bills are largely in part due to language, and the use of children (and the potential for their exploitation) as a compassionate front.

Who would say no to making the internet more safe for kids? Monsters, maybe.

Being proactive about the harm the internet poses toward children doesn't require sweeping legislation that demand you upload government ID or develop digital passports that law enforcement will happily buy the data of for a couple grand³⁶, but rather promotion of internet literacy and more proactive conversations about online safety facilitated by trusted adults and parents³⁷. The right to free speech includes anonymity³⁸ and during a rise in fascism globally, we need to be safeguarding it as much as possible, our survival quite literally depends on it.

For users, the internet is no longer the loosely regulated Wild West, but for the capitalist? The sky’s the limit and the presence of children pose a unique opportunity to fly high.

“—it’s like school is kind of a place where you like feel safe but then you know that happens and it’s— you lose trust in everybody because you’re given false hope that you’re safe and then that happens.”

Alexander Dworet- Parkland 18’ shooting survivor

CocoMelon or CocoMillions?

Children aren’t going anywhere, as www suggests, the internet is a giant interconnected web and children, or rather their profitability is the tie currently holding it together.

In 1983, companies spent a little over $100 million marketing to children. That price tag has increased exponentially, with companies spending nearly $17 billion advertising to them today. As smart tech became more accessible and children had more unsupervised screen time³⁹, marketers took it as an opportunity to extend their reach. With the expansion of card payment processing, various options for kids & teens spending accounts and families being able to accommodate more purchases, advertisers monopolized on children’s independent spending power and their influence on family spending. According to expert, Sharon Beder,

“Children 12 and under spend more than $11 billion of their own money and influence family spending decisions worth another $165 billion on food, household items like furniture, electrical appliances and computers, vacations, the family car, and other spending.”

That’s a combined $176 billion children hold the coin purse of, not an easy number to ignore. And if you’re a greedy capitalist looking to expand your wealth, you care little for the moral implications of such advertisement. These measures include targeted advertisement to children from data farmed out of their online activity. Research has shown targeted ads are embedded in over half of the products used by children⁴⁰. Though morally dubious, this isn’t illegal.

COPPA (The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 98’) is the only legislation that attempts to reconcile with information that can be collected from child web use, putting protections in place for sites catered to kids exclusively, a sector of online life seeming to go away in front of our eyes. COPPA however, has a problematic cousin, COPPA 2.0⁴¹ currently attempting to expand in a way that threatens internet privacy and extend state censorship by combining its bones with COPA (The Child Online Protection Act), legislation that was already repealed for violating the First Amendment.

For the advertiser, having children on screens is a fat payday and for parents, it’s a tool to help manage the domestic load. We see frequent talk of iPad kids addressing that very phenomenon. For generations void of safe, accessible public space, what used to be a simple “Go outside, play and be back before the streetlights come on.” is now, “You can get on the game for a while.” The accessibility of “the game” which is supplementing peer led play outdoors and the people on the other end of it, make allowing children to navigate the web in the digital age a more strained endeavor.

In 2024, it’s nearly impossible to live an unplugged life and with digital natives such as Gen Z & Gen Alpha being raised on the internet arguably, making it “child friendly” remains a priority for parents and a ballooning bank for advertisers who through the sanitizing of the internet, can further court their preferred consumers, children.

Connecting The Dots

We live in odd, frequently unsafe times. Global leaders are embracing fascism by the dozens, the climate disaster is rearing its head in a grand manner, and the average citizen is trying to squeeze dimes out of nickels. A trip to the grocery store, bank or mall could result in annihilation by the hands of a blood thirsty assailant with an assault rifle and everyday the government reminds us that our sovereignty as people is mostly theoretical. With power floating above us at all times, the common response isn’t to look up, but rather look down.

The general populous can feel the bullies, but have a hard time seeing them, producing circumstances that ask we seek power not against these cannibalizing systems such as: White Supremacy, Colonization, Capitalism and Cisheteropatriachy but rather each other. This is the cause of a lot of preventable, lateral and south facing (punching down) violence experienced.

The looming threat of mass shootings hangs over everyone but especially plagues parents. Sometimes when I’m in a crowded public space, I think of how hard it is to run holding a child, and lament about the helplessness caregivers experience when attempting to enrich children out in the world knowing their efforts to protect them are only as good as the speed at which they run and the inattention of the shooter. The threat of terror and the loss of robust third spaces invites us to seek escape in the internet, where many actors (in good & bad faith) have intimate access to you with the capacity to reshape your world view towards many beliefs, hatred and extremism especially.

I don’t consider it coincidental that the majority of mass shooters are young, white men⁴² who complained of disempowerment and often found themselves further radicalized online. These men are receiving messaging meant to accompany that of young women’s— for them, an opportunity to prove their valor in pursuit of racial purity and protection of the (almost always) white family while the women and girls are courted towards “returning back to their feminine roots”, coddling dreams of low plains and milking cows with their beautiful, isolated (read: safe) white children tucked away from the threats of society. She remains passive enough to ensure the male dominated structure is maintained while exercising her own desire for power in “feminized” spaces such as education, childcare and healthcare.

These crusades invite (and often require) violence towards the most marginalized existing in subcultures the dominant culture finds difficult to produce empathy for. Sex workers & the LGBTQIA+ communities are common enemies for this reason, with the wellbeing and safety of children being used as a vehicle to legislate them out of existence. The same children made easy prey for advertisers and marketers who rely on children’s overconsumption of the internet, and the growing push for it to be even more “child friendly”, to mine them for data and covertly sell goods to them.

It’s one giant ponzi scheme, taking violence the Empire refuses to address and encouraging it be reproduced laterally. We’re staring up at what appears to be the sky, but really is the wide neck of a funnel, forcing us into more strenuous circumstances until we’re exhausted into submission or too focused on hating each other to stare our actual enemy in the eye. Instead of stacking all of our stools to reach the top and eliminate our collective abusers, we throw them at each other yelling pejoratives.

The key to tackling these issues adequately, is to first acknowledge that they’re not just connected, but entirely dependent on each other to persist. It’s like building a house; the rebar, concrete, sheetrock, wood, insulation and pipes alone are useless, but together provide shelter. In order to see freedom, we need to demolish the house that is the Empire, one wall at a time, until eventually, it all just collapses in on itself and we observe from a distance, prepared to rebuild again.

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This piece was Goliath sized: dozens of hours of research, over 40 sources, agonizing rewrites, 12 pain management patches for my back. It was a true labor of love. I’m so damned proud of it and urge you to share it. I contemplated paywalling this and realized it would be a great disservice because I truly feel this is an important conversation and should be as accessible as possible. Just know your time and attention is appreciated and never taken for granted.

1. https://www.gunviolencearchive.org

2. https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/arms-control/gun-violence/

3. https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/explainer

4. https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2019/08/fear-mass-shooting

5. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/04/18/a-majority-of-u-s-teens-fear-a-shooting-could-happen-at-their-school-and-most-parents-share-their-concern/

6. https://www.cnn.com/us/school-shootings-fast-facts-dg/index.html

7. https://home.nra.org/statements/nra-statement-in-response-to-bidens-address/

8. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/active-shooter-defense-industry-safedefend/

9. https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/education/article239378978.html

10. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/26/business/school-safety-technology.html

11. https://www.securityindustry.org/advocacy/policy-priorities/school-safety/

12. https://www.thetimes.com/magazines/the-sunday-times-magazine/article/meet-the-queen-of-the-trad-wives-and-her-eight-children-plfr50cgk

13. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tradwife

14. https://www.lawshelf.com/coursewarecontentview/historical-background-of-alimony

15. https://bookshop.org/p/books/sisters-in-hate-american-women-and-white-extremism-seyward-darby/14179982?ean=9780316487788

16. https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-mormon-church-black-members-20180601-story.html

17. https://www.mrm.org/friendshipping

18. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2001/03/random-sampler/friendshipping-tips?lang=eng

19. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2024/01/rising-child-care-cost.html

20. https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/WB/NDCP/WB_IssueBrief-NDCP-final.pdf

21. https://www.forbes.com/sites/mariagraciasantillanalinares/2024/10/18/work-hours-lost-by-the-millions-a-new-index-is-tracking-the-cost-of-the-childcare-crisis/

22. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/child-care-crisis-keeping-women-workforce/

23. https://www.ala.org/bbooks/book-ban-data

24. https://www.statista.com/statistics/617136/digital-population-worldwide/

25. https://ourworldindata.org/internet

26. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2022/08/10/teens-social-media-and-technology-2022/

27. http://greatgoodplace.org

28. https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230

29. https://endsexualexploitation.org/cda-230/

30. https://www.thedailybeast.com/radical-feminists-and-conservative-christians-team-up-against-transgender-people/

31. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/03/27/lies-damned-lies-and-sex-work-statistics/

32. https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/04/05/teachers-groomers-pedophiles-dont-say-gay/

33. https://www.aclu.org/news/civil-liberties/how-online-censorship-harms-sex-workers-and-lgbtq-communities

34. https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/the-earn-it-act-is-a-disaster-for-online-speech-and-privacy-especially-for-the-lgbtq-and-sex-worker-communities

35. https://www.aclu.org/news/lgbtq-rights/paypal-and-venmo-are-shutting-out-sex-workers-putting-lives-and-livelihoods-at-risk#:~:text=to%20News%20%26%20Commentary-,PayPal%20and%20Venmo%20are%20Shutting%20Out%20Sex%20Workers%2C%20Putting%20Lives,provide%20transparency%20to%20their%20users.

36. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/inside-fog-data-science-secretive-company-selling-mass-surveillance-local-police

37. https://www.justice.gov/coronavirus/keeping-children-safe-online#:~:text=Kids%20should%20talk%20with%20a,a%20trusted%20adult%20about%20it.

38. https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/anonymous-speech/

39. https://www.apa.org/pubs/reports/advertising-children

40. https://www.commonsense.org/education/articles/kids-are-exposed-to-targeted-advertising-across-the-industry#:~:text=In%20summary%2C%20this%20research%20shows,product%20or%20across%20the%20internet.

41. https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/ftc-proposes-changes-privacy-law-collide-free-speech

42. https://digitaledition.chicagotribune.com/tribune/article_popover.aspx?guid=62ba50e8-ae08-4ab6-bdf1-e4e46b6e9b1b