ABSTRACT
Redpilling is the claimed practice of “waking men up” to the realities of power, namely the alleged perniciousness of feminism in contemporary society. Taken from the movie The Matrix, the Redpill worldview has roots in masculine internet spaces (the manosphere) but eventually expanded to refer to any spread of “radical” right wing awakening. The chapter argues that Redpilling is a cultural form of subjective transformation mostly based on traditional types of truth production (revelation, now to one’s authentic masculine self). Redpilling is a digitally networked campaign of awakening in which revelation is experienced as a passage to a new mode of existence—not just changing your mind but changing your life. Examining a series of cases (lifestyle products, digital artifacts, gurus), the chapter argues that the Redpill-induced subjective transformation instrumentalizes information, but its cultural practice is one of initiation and mobilization for action. The chapter concludes that Redpilling invokes and re-enacts archaic patriarchal pacts, a gendered rite of passage that now revives older initiations to restore patriarchal order. In this way, it is a legacy of fascist war bands (ancient Männerbunde and modern squadrismo) on a new terrain in a longer-standing war on women.
