What is the “lite” in “alt-lite?” The discourse of white vulnerability and dominance among YouTube’s reactionaries

Abstract

This article examines the discourse of “alt-lite” YouTube personalities in a North American context, with a focus on how whiteness is understood and represented. It argues that, despite their self-presentation as color-blind conservatives, these figures are firmly embedded within white supremacist ideology. A qualitative approach to content analysis is adopted to excavate the logics underlying these videos and to highlight the rhetorical tools at work. By framing themselves as the vulnerable targets of progressive movements, “alt-lite” personalities have helped to revive and legitimize a discourse of white victimhood. Their videos emphasize the historic dominance of “white culture” while bemoaning the current and future vulnerability of white people in a politically correct, social-justice-oriented world. Ultimately, the article argues that “alt-lite” figures are united by a set of mitigating rhetorical strategies, which are used to temper and obfuscate their reactionary views. These strategies include performatively aligning with one minority group to denigrate another; highlighting personal relationships with non-white people and knowledge of non-white cultures; embracing a color-blind worldview purportedly rooted in the civil rights movement; and maintaining ironic distance when espousing more overtly hateful racial stereotypes. The adoption of these strategies by right-wing micro-celebrities should not deter scholars and civil society groups from acknowledging when those same figures traffic in white supremacist rhetoric.