In New Zealand, Signs Point to a Gunman Steeped in Internet Trolling – The New York Times

The gunman appeared to pair the shooting with the typical trolling tactics of the internet’s most far-right instigators, playing to a community of like-minded supporters online who cheered him on in real time as they watched bodies pile up. And the manifesto states plainly what usually goes unstated by internet trolls: By design, its author wanted to get everyone upset and arguing with each other.

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One of the goals of his bloodshed, he wrote, was to “agitate the political enemies of my people into action, to cause them to overextend their own hand and experience the eventual and inevitable backlash as a result.” He said he wanted to “incite violence, retaliation and further divide.”

The manifesto, the harrowing video and what appear to be the gunman’s social media posts feature typical white nationalist rhetoric with layers upon layers of irony and meta jokes, making it difficult to parse what is genuine and what he just thought was funny.

The gunman seems to have a significant interest in history — at least, the parts that fit into a white nationalist narrative. On his weapons, he wrote the names of centuries-old military leaders who led battles against largely nonwhite forces, along with the names of men who recently carried out mass shootings of Jews and Muslims.

The manifesto refers to nonwhites as “invaders” who threaten to “replace” white people. The author says he used guns instead of other weapons because he wanted the United States to tear itself apart arguing over gun laws.

His choice of language, and the specific memes he referred to, suggest a deep connection to the far-right online community. The link to the livestreamed video was first posted to the /pol/ forum of 8chan, a notorious far-right space, where the gunman was hailed as a hero after the shooting.

Some of his references were subtle. As he drove to the mosque, he listened to a song associated with a 1995 Serbian nationalist video, which has recently been co-opted as a racist meme.