Recruiting Terrorists: How ISIS and the Proud Boys Employ Social Media to Gain Followers

Introduction

When alt-right White supremacist insurrectionists, evoking Christian imagery, stormed the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, there was no reason for ISIS to be anywhere other than on the periphery of America’s collective consciousness.^[1] Among the various groups present that day were the Proud Boys, a radical White nationalist and supremacist group founded in 2016 by Gavin McInnes, a Canadian living in the United States. ISIS, situated on the opposite side of the globe, has seemingly nothing in common with the Proud Boys except a propensity for religious-adjacent violence. Despite a resurgence in activity in 2022, notably in Nigeria and Syria, ISIS’s exploits in 2014–2015 appear far away in the rearview mirror. What, then, is the purpose of comparing the two groups? Social media.

Inherent in modern-day terrorism is the remarkable recruitment tool that is social media, and ISIS and the Proud Boys employ it with stunning efficacy. But ISIS and the Proud Boys are not monolithic, and neither is their utilization of social media. Examining what is similar and different about the two groups’ social media recruitment strategies by focusing on the platforms they use, the people they target, and the incentives they advertise, gives valuable insight into the two groups’ utilization of social media.^[2] This article illustrates the nuances in both groups’ employment of social media, ultimately arguing that their similar but distinct approaches are a product of the available social media platforms (i.e., restrictions on platforms create the need for new platforms), their specific target audiences (ethnically and sexually diverse clientele versus White, American men), and their unique end goals (establishing a pure, unadulterated Islamic caliphate versus affirming and advancing a White supremacist agenda).

Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and More: Terrorists’ Favorite Social Media Platforms

Media and propaganda were always at the center of ISIS’s operational strategy, including their astute usage of social media (and their beheading videos) to recruit new followers. Notably, during their peak in 2014–2015, ISIS paid their media members upward of seven times the amount they paid jihadist fighters (not including food, clothes, shelter, and other perks) and ran them through an intensive month-long crash course on using media effectively.^[3] ISIS used industry-level cameras for rehearsed, planned-out killings and GoPros for more combat-based footage, most of which they imported from Turkey.^[4] However, their propaganda machine also required extensive editing and post-production work. Using Hollywood-endorsed software from Avid Technology, common editing software like Adobe Premiere and Final Cut Pro, and other well-known techniques (like green screens), ISIS excelled in post-production editing.^[5] Once ISIS polished its propaganda pieces, it needed a location to distribute (outside of its magazine, Dabiq, and its radio network, Al-Bayan) it. And this is where social media became arguably the most vital component of realizing the caliphate’s vision.

ISIS was (and still is) a social media savant, and it is not possible to overstate how impressive its social media prowess was at its peak. ISIS employed traditional social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Myspace, Tumblr, and Flickr.^[6] However, the list does not stop there. ISIS also employed other, less-popular social media platforms like Kik and manipulated messaging functions on Reddit and eBay to disseminate their propaganda.^[7] ISIS also created its own social media platforms and apps (Haroof and Fajr al-Bashaer) in hopes of evading restrictions. Isis’s broad strategy toward social media appeared to be pro any platform that can share their propaganda.

While ISIS used many platforms to disseminate its propaganda message, Facebook undeniably takes the prize for most used, which is only logical given Facebook’s unmatched high-usage rates in the 2010s. Some estimates assert that Facebook attracted more than 1 billion unique users per month at its peak.^[8] For any social media–focused organization, mastering and manipulating Facebook is a must. However, it was not just the platform’s reach that attracted ISIS. On Facebook, ISIS created an official page (which was later taken down by Facebook) and had operatives recruit, update, and link material using their pages.^[9] These individual profiles were incredibly successful in recruitment, as they linked “web-hosted” material and recruitment information via their pages and multimessaging applications inside Facebook.^[10] Facebook attempted to terminate every ISIS-related page they could find, but some slipped through the cracks or reached the intended audiences before removal. Compared to Facebook, Twitter designers emphasized capturing the viewer’s short attention span (with character limits). At any given time, ISIS had more than 46,000 accounts on Twitter, many of which published written works espousing the ideology and attraction of ISIS.^[11] However, one of ISIS’s most effective recruitment methods on social media came from hashtags. This method, dubbed “hashtag hijacking,” occurred when ISIS placed a trending hashtag on its recruitment propaganda.^[12] For example, in 2014, ISIS frequently employed the hashtag “#WorldCup” on Twitter but attached its own content to the hashtag.^[13] ISIS developed its own app, Fajr al-Bashaer, that worked in conjunction with Twitter. The app tracked ISIS’s progress throughout the Levant and tweeted roughly 40,000 times on the day ISIS took Mosul.^[14] Similarly to Facebook, Twitter attempted to suppress and eliminate the ISIS propaganda and recruitment messaging on its platform, but eradicating it all proved impossible.

Fajr al-Bashaer was not the only notable app that ISIS put out for indoctrination or recruitment. Created by ISIS sometime before 2016, Haroof was an app—not available on traditional app-downloading platforms like the App Store or Google Play—focused on language acquisition for minors.^[15] In short, Haroof used words relating to war to teach youth language.^[16] For example, whereas your typical program would have said “A is for apple,” Haroof said something like, “D is for Dhakheera (ammunition),” or “S is for Saarukh (rocket).”^[17] While Haroof predominantly targeted younger children learning the alphabet, it effectively indoctrinated in two ways. First, young children were targets of the caliphate. A child 10 to11 years old that grew up using Haroof was a prime candidate for recruitment. Second, there was an immense and incalculable psychological element to Haroof. By adolescence, children had already accepted and internalized ISIS’s message. Using Haroof, ISIS taught young children that violence and extremism are normal and required to advance ISIS’s interpretation of Islam.^[18] Another app that ISIS created and used for recruitment is Nasher, which essentially reported any and all breaking news regarding ISIS.^[19] Like Haroof, Nasher was unavailable on traditional app-downloading platforms. A post on Twitter from August 2, 2015, from a presumed ISIS operative, writes, “ISIS App: ISIS news—photos, reports, visual releases received directly on your device.”^[20] In short, Nasher was another way that ISIS kept its followers, and soon-to-be followers, up to date. Although not an exhaustive list, Fajr al-Bashaer, Haroof, and Nasher represent three of the nontraditional social media platforms that ISIS used to indoctrinate and recruit.

The social media savvy of the Proud Boys, especially compared to other White nationalist groups in the United States, comes from the top down. Namely, Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes cofounded VICE magazine in 1994, and he carried his acumen on mass communication to the Proud Boys.^[21] Like ISIS, the Proud Boys deploy heavy-hitting social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for recruitment. However, compared with ISIS, the Proud Boys use Instagram more extensively, predominantly because of Instagram’s propensity for meme-sharing.^[22] Again, similar to ISIS, the Proud Boys also employ Twitter as a recruitment tool to reach their intended audiences. Much like ISIS did, the Proud Boys attempt to capitalize on the short attention span of potential recruits, either via memes or short, 140-character tweets. However, these larger platforms try their best to ban the Proud Boys and their related accounts, primarily because of their violent appeals, hateful speech, and false narratives. As a result, alt-right–affiliated social media platforms, notably Truth Social and Parler, are essential to the Proud Boys’ recruiting strategy. On Truth Social alone, several states in the United States have a Proud Boys affiliated page riddled with memes, ideology, and other information pertinent to recruitment. In short, the Proud Boys, while not as astute as ISIS, are social media savvy, and they use many platforms ISIS did while also creating their own platforms when necessary.

Unequivocally, the big draw to Instagram is the ability to disseminate memes in mass quantities, as previously mentioned. Memes are much more than jokes. In many ways, memes—a joking or humorous image typically accompanied by text—reflect the status quo of society and represent the “in” thought. Studying memes is, in a way, glimpsing into culture and behavior, and they offer valuable insight into society’s collective identity.^[23] On Instagram, the Proud Boys not only create memes that represent their collective worldview, but they disseminate them to prospective recruits. One of the oft-employed memes the Proud Boys employ for recruitment is their heretical adaption of The Matrix pills. Namely, the Proud Boys offer a “red pill” and a “blue pill,” with the former referring to an awakening rooted in a pure, White, and Christian identity.^[24] This appeal to conspiracy—namely, that there is a “matrix” to be awoken from—appeals to those seeking "enlightenment (i.e., recruits). By invoking a sentiment of faux mystery and pseudo-intellectualism in their memes, the Proud Boys capitalize on the purpose-seeking, disenfranchised, White male. Memes are also a relatively benign or “harmless” way of introducing radical ideology and making it more palatable for the recruit audience. On Instagram, DeCook (2018) outlines some prominent hashtags on Instagram associated with pro–Proud Boys accounts and memes: #MAGA, #USA, #Hitler, #AmericaFirst, #WesternChauvinism, and #DeusVult.^[25] Twitter is another Proud Boys–frequented website. Like ISIS, the Proud Boys piggyback on and employ hashtags to disperse their ideology on Twitter. One of the Proud Boys’ most sagacious strategies on Twitter is establishing a collective identity rooted in returning to an idealized past, which appeals to their atavistic-driven recruits.^[26] In short, the Proud Boys use memes on social media to cultivate identities and institutionalize ideologies that they push to new recruits.

Outside the traditional social media platforms, the Proud Boys employ several platforms—notably, Parler and Truth Social—that aid and abet their recruitment strategy. Recruitment is most apparent on Truth Social, at least on the surface. Not only do multiple states have official Proud Boys–affiliated pages (the Proud Boys also have an official page on Parler), but these pages actively recruit. Expectedly, most of these recruitment advertisements center around a meme or an image. Two notable examples include the DarKorner Proud Boys from Greenville, South Carolina, and the North Phoenix Proud Boys. The DarKorner Proud Boys page uses a graphic with the caption, “Are you proud of your country and your way of life? Are you worried about the nation your children will inherit? Do you want to do more than ‘just vote’? We saved you a seat.”^[27] The caption also includes an email link to join the Proud Boys. The North Phoenix page reposted an image with the caption, “If you stay silent and fail to rock the boat in this war between good and evil, your life might be easier but your children’s won’t.”^[28] The Proud Boys page added, “Join your local Proud Boys today: ProudBoysofAZ.com.” Other accounts link information to “wake up” to reality, often employing the red pill imagery. Other state-affiliated Proud Boys accounts, namely New Jersey, Kentucky, Ohio, and Arizona, link a website to join in their bios. Granted, this occurs on a relatively small scale, but some accounts (like DarKorner Proud Boys and North Phoenix Proud Boys) link their recruitment propaganda to existing discussion threads. That is, these accounts are occasionally searching out individuals looking for information and supply it to them. On Truth Social, Proud Boys affiliates mention platforms like Rumble and Telegram, the latter of which is essential to Proud Boys’ private messaging. Regardless of which platform—Parler, Truth Social, Rumble, or Telegram—the Proud Boys are increasingly moving toward a social media recruitment strategy that is “ungovernable.” On those platforms, the Proud Boys cannot be censored or punished, seemingly no matter what they say or do.

Target Audience for Terrorist Propaganda on Social Media

ISIS targeted both men and women for recruitment. Given that ISIS’s atavistic vision harkened back to a time of intensely defined patriarchy, it only makes sense that ISIS emphasized male recruitment. But what kind of male did they recruit? These young men were Sunni Muslims—long-standing or newly converted, either worked—who were generally able-bodied enough to contribute to the caliphate’s calculus. There were two main categories. The first category was, broadly, vulnerable men, often in their formative youth. There was a laundry list of vulnerabilities that ISIS preyed on: unemployment, religious confusion, alienation, marginalization, a perceived lack of purpose, etc.^[29] The caliphate provided “solutions” to those vulnerabilities. For some, the promise of living wages, food, shelter, and clothing was enough to convince them. ISIS—harkening back to dualism—preyed on American men who viewed Islam as fighting a cosmic-scale war against America and the West.^[30] For young twenty-something Americans who subscribed to this ideology, as radical and abstract as it may seem, ISIS provided an outlet. However, ISIS did not only recruit vulnerable Americans with fringe identities and beliefs. The other category of men they recruited are those with extreme propensities for violence and gore. At the center of this recruitment strategy were grotesque exhibitions of violence on social media, such as Jihadi John’s brutal beheadings.^[31] As unsavory and tragic of a reality as it is, violence permeates American society, and ISIS’s gory videos targeted that portion of the American psyche. Their videos, put out across many social media platforms, struck a chord with those longing for an outlet for their violent tendencies, and gave them a collective space of acceptance. And ISIS painted these violent acts as religiously necessary in fighting against their enemies (i.e., the West), effectively appealing to anti-Western and anti-American sentiments often found in recruits.^[32] Therefore, ISIS primarily recruited men from two different spheres: those with intense vulnerabilities and those without an outlet for violent ideation.

Unlike the Proud Boys, ISIS emphasized the recruitment of both sexes. Namely, ISIS viewed women as an essential—but not necessarily equal—part of their “caliphate” vision. Women constitute almost 50 percent of the world’s population, and ISIS viewed them as an untapped resource ripe for exploitation.^[33] How can an organization succeed in establishing a “caliphate” without women? From a simple mathematic perspective, ISIS’s atavistic vision required women. After all, who will give birth to and nurture the children? Who will keep the house running while male jihadis fight for Islam? For ISIS, the answer was women. Occasionally, there were rare exceptions when a woman in ISIS gained a more advanced role, like a social media worker, propaganda creator, or security patroller. The al-Khamasa Brigade, an all-female stop-and-search unit that patrolled ISIS checkpoints, was a prime example of those advanced roles for women.^[34] ISIS women were prime recruiters on social media, often espousing the need for Muslims to make hijra to ISIS-controlled territory.^[35] While ISIS initially recruited women out of necessity for domestic (and eventually more offensive-minded roles) roles, they also recruited women because of the press visibility that came when American (and Western women) joined their organization. Women in ISIS saturated television and media outlets both in the Middle East and abroad, and their stories enhanced ISIS media coverage and exposure almost parabolically.^[36] ISIS, being the savvy and astute organization it was, capitalized on this. When ISIS learned how much traction women jihadis gained in Western societies, it rapidly increased propaganda production featuring women and, in doing so, attracted more women recruits.^[37] Undeniably, ISIS’s recruitment of women began almost out of a necessity for their “caliphate” vision, but, over time, ISIS came to view women’s recruitment as an incalculable and indispensable component of their caliphate calculus.

Despite being offered less significant roles than men, ISIS recruited women at high rates. As of 2016, 117 Americans—men and women—had joined the jihadi cause in Syria, representing 23 US states, including California, New York, Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.^[38] Expectedly, no uniform ethnic background exists—like with the Proud Boys—among American ISIS recruits. In that same cohort of 117 recruits, there were African Americans, Vietnamese Americans, Bosnian Americans, Somali Americans, and Arab Americans (and this is not an exhaustive list of the ethnicities of ISIS’s American recruits).^[39] ISIS recruits coming from the United States were also very young. Approximately 20 percent of ISIS recruits from the United States were teenagers, including a 15-year-old girl.^[40] However, the average age of recruits joining the front in Syria from the United States was roughly 25.^[41] As the previous sections of this article allude to, ISIS recruited and indoctrinated many of these recruits in online spaces. ISIS radicalized more than 75 percent of these recruits with online propaganda.^[42] Many of these 117 recruits were searching for an escape from Western society and wanted to “expunge” the hedonistic West from Islamic communities.^[43] This case study shows that American ISIS recruits came from diverse ethnic backgrounds, primarily young ages, many different states, and both sexes.

Compared to ISIS, the Proud Boys recruit along far narrower lines, namely because the Proud Boys do not see themselves as the founder of a new state but rather as the restorer—and a safe haven—for White American males. Founder Gavin McInnes best describes their target audience, “I don’t want our culture diluted…We need to close the borders now and let everyone assimilate into a Western, White, English-speaking way of life.”^[44] This quote, while ideological in nature, underscores the central point of Point Boys’ recruitment strategies: There is no room for anyone who is not White. The Proud Boys do not need women for their vision as ISIS does, and their vision discriminates along racial, ethnic, and sex lines far more than ISIS. The Proud Boys recruit White, American males expressing a perceived loss in their societal place stemming from political changes, immigration, and demographic fluxes.^[45] Many White males recruited by the Proud Boys are those looking to be “red-pilled” and awoken from the matrix of modern American society.^[46] Many of these White men are susceptible to the Proud Boys’ ideologies because the Proud Boys hone in on online communities of men who recently experienced rejection, break-ups, or romantic loss.^[47] The Proud Boys target recruits expressing desires to move away from “effeminate” coping mechanisms and to live in a hypermasculine space. A central component of the ideal Proud Boys recruit is an expressed belief that women and men have defined gender roles and that deviating from those roles creates degenerative societies.^[48] Many Proud Boys recruits are libertarians who emphasize freedom over any other ideology. In short, the ideal Proud Boys recruit has a defined list of identities: White, libertarian, anti-feminist, and anti–modern American society.

Regarding definitive online groups, the Proud Boys target “incels” more than any other group. Incels, short for “involuntarily celibate,” are chronically online men who, as the name alludes to, cannot find women attracted to them. Incels, similarly to the Proud Boys, frame their inability to attract women as an inherently feminine flaw. That flaw is that women are spiteful and shallow, and their attraction to men exists solely in muscular, fit, and strong men.^[49] Incels also view women’s autonomy over their bodies as a sign of societal degeneracy and believe that women are hyper-fixated on sexual activities.^[50] While it is hard not to see incels’ qualms as a projection of their flaws and sexual failures, their ideology warrants consideration within a Proud Boys’ recruitment context. Incels primarily mobilize on social media, and it is here that they become linked with the Proud Boys. The primary connector of the two is the “manosphere,” an online collection of websites espousing men’s rights and opposing women’s rights.^[51] The claim for men in the manosphere is disillusionment with modern feminism and placing blame on women for their lack of sexual fulfillment.^[52] This ideology is almost identical to that of the Proud Boys. Not only are the Proud Boys and incels overlapping in online spaces with similar belief systems, but the incels also feel a loss of power.^[53] That perceived loss of power is precisely what the Proud Boys exploit. Namely, the Proud Boys give power back to the incels.

As much as anti-feminism and incels dominate the type of individual the Proud Boys recruit, other factors are also at play. On Truth Social, various Proud Boys–related accounts post about political topics and anti-leftist ideology, which not so subtly hints at recruiting people disillusioned with the current political sphere. For example, @moonshinePB, a Proud Boys page on social media, posted a photo with the caption, “Together We Can Save The Children. No More Drag Queens For Kids! Our children are not guinea pigs for the ‘Transgender’ community, period!”^[54] @Ruckruf, a frequent commenter under @moonshinePB’s posts—whose account header is a map sectioning off liberal states California, Oregon, and Washington with the caption “Proposed Wall around Fucktardistan”—espouses conspiracy theories surrounding purported FBI involvement with right-wing catastrophes like the Waco siege.^[55] These threads are a few posts from a recruitment post asking individuals to join the Michiana Proud Boys. The connection between alt-right politics, conspiracy theories, and recruitment cannot be understated, especially when the Proud Boys push back on many of those classifications. To recruit, the Proud Boys unabashedly target extreme far-right thinkers that subscribe to false conspiracy theories. In principle, this strategy is very similar to their incel strategy. Namely, the Proud Boys identify right-wing conspiracy theorists and indoctrinate them with memes and images that reaffirm their beliefs while positioning links to join their group just a few posts above or below it. This strategy also doubles as an indoctrination service for newer, questioning individuals. Obviously, the Proud Boys recruit along their ideological basis (just as ISIS does), but the Proud Boys play an active role in manufacturing and instilling those ideologies in people or, at the very least, validating those that already subscribe to those ideologies.

What do Terrorists Advertise?

What ISIS advertised on social media is, in fact, very similar to its overarching ideology. A common misconception is that almost all of ISIS’s fighters—both domestic and foreign—were, or are, poor. The thinking was that ISIS, which promised wages, food, shelter, and clothing, preyed on poor people (i.e., advertised the financial aspect of their operation). This hypothesis is only partly true. Speckhard and Ellenberg (2020) interviewed ISIS returnees, defectors, and prisoners on their rationale for joining. On average, 2.2 percent of domestic men that joined ISIS were unemployed and not looking for work, while 1.1 percent were unemployed.^[56] For foreign men, the number jumps to 3.8 percent unemployed and not looking for work, while 2.2 percent were unemployed.^[57] Regardless of foreign or domestic recruits, most men were employed (more in blue-collar jobs than white-collar jobs). Likewise, most women came from middle-class roots (65.4 percent of men did, whereas 63.2 percent of women did).^[58] These data show that economic benefits were only a part, and arguably a small part, of the picture. However, these data do not rule out two things. One, for some—the poorer, foreign, Western fighters—ISIS’s advertisements of wealth and financial prosperity were the primary motivators.^[59] And second, being middle class does not indicate financial satisfaction, just as having a blue-collar or white-collar job does not indicate career satisfaction. ISIS, which at times advertised extreme financial rewards, could have appealed to even some lower-middle–class families who wanted more financial prosperity or more meaningful jobs. However, it is crucial to consider that ISIS, despite certain preconceived notions, was not recruiting homeless vagabonds wandering the streets. What they advertised merely represented more possibility and purpose to middle-class individuals working white-collar and blue-collar jobs.

Most of what ISIS advertised was religious and psychological. For Muslim women who joined ISIS, religious reasons were the most frequently cited motivation. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the longtime leader of ISIS, stated it was a religious duty for women “to help build its infrastructure, economy, and army for jihad.”^[60] For Western women, ISIS advertised participating in state-building processes and the creation of a new society that was staunchly anti-West.^[61] Inherent in the caliphate’s advertised vision to recruits was that Western societies were hedonistic and intrinsically non-Islamic. Female ISIS recruiters online stated, “talk about the failings of Western societies, speak negatively about restrictions on how they can practice Islam (for example, the banning of the burqa in France), and criticize the political system.”^[62] Living under a pure, sanctified, and righteous Islamic society meant that Muslims could practice their religion however they saw fit.^[63] Other ISIS pleas described the imminent threat the ummah (Muslim community) faced at the West’s hands; the idea was that the West was waging war against Islam.^[64] Joining ISIS meant realizing a cosmic religious duty to defend Islam against infidels and incurring some religious reward for partaking in said battle on Earth. For women especially, ISIS projected a picture of community belonging (sometimes even offering husbands or arranging marriages) and eternal reward.^[65] Again, this discussion sheds light on common Western misconceptions and is similar to conversations on the hijab, niqab, or burqa. Many Westerners cannot look upon the Islamic community without projecting their own notions of Western freedom and, in this case, feminism. The idea that a Muslim woman would choose to live in a society formulated as being the precise antithesis of Western society might seem shocking—but it is nevertheless the reality of how ISIS convinced women (and men) to join.

Isis’s advertisements on social media also tapped into certain psychological realms. Namely, ISIS marketed joining a movement “bigger than oneself,” an effective strategy in attracting purposeless Westerners to the caliphate’s vision.^[66] For some, working in a grassroots state-building environment gave their life direction. Also giving Western recruits a purpose was ISIS’s perceived role in fighting a cosmic-scale dualistic battle between good and evil.^[67] Other factions of young, Western recruits expressed boredom, and ISIS—which claimed on social media to be changing the course of history—gave them something to raise their excitement. Especially for women, the advertised ISIS vision gave them a shot at empowerment and meaning in their lives.^[68] Interestingly, some ISIS social media posts, which were critical of how poor life was for Syrians, motivated individuals to join for humanitarian reasons.^[69] Inherent in almost all of this, irrespective of gender, was a perceived alienation from Western society. And in that regard, ISIS recruits are strikingly similar to Proud Boys recruits. The inescapable reality is that significant portions of youth in America (and in the West) feel like they do not have a place in modern society. And social media provides a quasi-ungovernable space where religious terrorists can advertise solutions to their problems. Just as there was no prototype for an ISIS recruit, there was no prototype for what ISIS advertised, be it religious, socioeconomic, psychological, anti-West, or something entirely different.

Because of their different ideologies and foundational principles, the Proud Boys advertise something entirely different than ISIS. They do not advertise socioeconomic benefits, joining a cosmic-scale dualistic battle between good and evil, or joining an Islamic caliphate importing seventh-century Arabia onto the twenty-first–century world. However, similar to ISIS, the Proud Boys advertise spaces for fringe identities to coalesce—granted, the fringe identities in question are different. Another difference is that the Proud Boys advertise a space for political conspiracy theorists, something that ISIS does not entertain. The list of conspiracy theories includes, but is not limited to, FBI involvement in the Las Vegas shooting, the “stealing” of the 2020 election, pro-transgender indoctrination in schools, anti-Covid (virus and the vaccine), Hillary Clinton being a “serial killer,” and fighting the “communists” in the Democratic Party. The Proud Boys sandwich recruitment posts in between those about political conspiracy theories or other comments that are anti-Semitic, transphobic, Islamophobic, or misogynistic. Not only does this highlight the proximity of those beliefs to the ideal recruit, but it represents a stark difference from ISIS. While one could argue that ISIS is misogynistic, transphobic, or anti-Semitic, they do not advertise these as welcome identities like the Proud Boys do. The Proud Boys seek out these identities, whereas you might find them prevalent in ISIS recruits, but that is not why they joined ISIS. Above all, the Proud Boys advertise a space welcoming to all individuals disillusioned with American society—and yes, of course, “all individuals” means White.

A notable Proud Boys’ Instagram meme reads, “ANTIFA hunting permit. Open season on all fifty-eight Gender Identities: No Bagging Limit, No Tagging Required.”^[70] Another meme depicts a White son asking his White father, “Dad, why are there no Muslims in Star Trek?” The father answers, “Because it’s the future, son.”^[71] Another meme puts the Nazi swastika, an Antifa flag, a Ku Klux Klan emblem, and the Black Lives Matter logo side by side with the caption, “It is time to condemn ALL hate groups.”^[72] Relevant hashtags from those posts read #fuckprogressives, #nomoslems, #muslimlivesdontmatter, and #freethinker.^[73] Their “innovative,” “free-thinking” woke ideology stated, in the caption of that ANTIFA hunting permit meme, “I say kill them all.”^[74] Many other memes and Instagram posts harken to their atavistic vision for 1950s America, when White men controlled women and subjugated the Black community while standing unchallenged at the top of the food chain. Less than four days after Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd, Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes posted on YouTube, “The race war is here.”^[75] These beliefs and ideologies are inherently what the Proud Boys advertise and welcome in their new recruits. This is who they are. They are White supremacists, they are Islamophobic, they are transphobic, and they are misogynistic.

When considering what the Proud Boys advertise, Christian “ethics” and misogyny are other crucial areas. Their iteration of Western chauvinism—arguably the most salient Proud Boy belief (i.e., “The West is the Best”)—is supposedly rooted in a Judeo-Christian ethical basis.^[76] The Proud Boys manipulate this ethical framework and are openly anti-Semitic and pro-Hitler in their social media posts. Along a similar vein is the Proud Boys’ belief in Christian supersessionism, meaning God retracted the Covenant with Abraham and the Jews are no longer God’s chosen people.^[77] This Christian elitism is hardly surprising, as the Proud Boys have no space for anything other than White, Christian men. The Proud Boys’ status as a pseudo-Christian organization stems almost exclusively from a hatred of everything multicultural and diverse about America—everything that is not White Christianity.^[78] As such, they are pro-Christian almost by default. Furthermore, Kitts (2020) cites Daniel Lee in asserting that the pliability of the Christian identity is one of the religion’s defining features throughout history—essentially, the Proud Boys have made a Christian identity out of what they want Christianity to be.^[79] Nevertheless, the only thing making the Proud Boys Christian (or Christian adjacent) is, as Margo Kitts says, appearing “to be Christian insofar as it detests what is not Christian.”^[80] Again, what’s inherent in their pro-Christian ideology (on social media) is a fear of replacement. Fear of replacement drives Gavin McInnes to social media to say, “95 percent of women would be happier at home” and “maybe the reason I’m sexist is because women are dumb.”^[81] McInnes, who also claims that rape does not bother Muslim women, positioned misogyny at the forefront of Proud Boys ideology and recruitment.^[82] Christian symbolism—Deus volt—and misogyny are rampant in online social media posts from the Proud Boys. And while this might seem ideological, this is the precise ideology they advertise: an accepting space for misogynists, Islamophobes, anti-Semites, incels, racists, and transphobes. That advertised communal space where those fringe identities can “belong” coincides with striving to implement an atavistic vision of 1950s America. That—sticking up for White, Christian men—is the Proud Boys advertisement ethos.

Conclusion

The harsh reality is that religious terrorists, like ISIS and the Proud Boys, are savvy, innovative, and intelligent. In the twenty-first century, with social media as the global hub of communication, ISIS and the Proud Boys adapted and placed their recruitment squarely within those online channels. What ISIS and the Proud Boys show us is threefold. First, terrorist groups’ social media savvy demands our attention. A meme appears harmless, but it can cause irrevocable damage, just like a language acquisition app. We must understand how extensive and sophisticated their online strategies are. Second, there are commonalities among their recruitment clientele, no matter how polar opposite they appear. We must consider those on the fringes of society—the exact people that fall prey to these recruitment ploys—that Americans often neglect because it is those that end up killing Capitol police officers. And third, the Proud Boys—and other White nationalists—pose an imminent threat to American society. Contextualizing the Proud Boys alongside ISIS truly peels back the curtain of ignorance: there are White terrorists among us that pose an equal, if not larger, threat to our society than any other religious terrorist.