Talking to Elle Reeve about ‘Black Pill’

On this episode of the Unpopular Front author series, I talked to reporter Elle Reeve. Elle is a correspondent at CNN, formerly of Vice News Tonight, where she won several awards for her outstanding coverage of Charlottesville. She’s also the author of the recent book Black Pill: How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet, Come to Life, Poison Society, and Capture American Politics.

If you’ve heard the term “alt-right,” it’s very likely due to Elle Reeve’s work. But today that term might already seem quaint. Elle has closely chronicled how the alternative became the mainstream: Her reporting traces neo-fascism from its origins in the seedy underbelly of internet forums to Capitol Hill and the White House. And from the subcultures of the socially marginal to the everyday language of politics and culture. We talked about what she’s observed over the course of her career, the road from 4Chan to January 6th, the psychology of the movement, and we speculated a little bit on what’s coming next. You might think that’s all darkness and gloom, but Elle’s reporting is also often very funny: her work is peopled with grotesque and pathetic characters that you can’t turn away from. I found the conversation really enlightening and a bracing real-world check on my sometimes abstruse historical and theoretical speculations, and I hope you will too!

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