A lot of people are perplexed this morning that they attacked the Capitol and...made content?

Internet studies scholar here that focuses on the visual - some context, and why it’s not all that surprising...here are some scattered thoughts.

This has been an online visual group from the beginning. In general, the visual is a way of being online. Online logics don’t control us, but they become ways of understanding the world.

This is also a particular group that is embroiled in, and propagates, conspiracy. What do people think they need for evidence, say, to maybe prove their conspiracy? Visual materials. The camera doesn’t lie, right? (Wrong)

hese rioters have also been planning this for months. For them, this was the logical culmination and goal. They did it. Of course they’re going to be documenting it.

And yes, this behavior does lend itself to being in search of clicks, likes, and more. But it’s more than that - for them, it’s evidentiary. It’s celebratory. Having visual momentos is part of their very cause itself.

A brilliant Internet communication scholar, Jose van Dijck, wrote in the mid 2000s that online image sharing had shifted to “live communication instead of storing pictures of life.”

The rioters were communicating with those not in the Capitol with them, be it to show success to sympathizers or terrorize the rest of us.

Mot trying to self promote right now, but I’ve studied this: my first journal article was on why exhibitionism was a better term for accusations of narcissism in digital cultures - not about excessive self love, but extravagant behavior intended to attract attention to one’s self

We should never reduce any online practice to an “ism,” but what I watched in horror yesterday was terrorists using online logics and tenets of digital culture (which they’ve done since the beginning) to attack our Capitol. Attract attention to them and their cause.

None of this is sympathy for these people. Just some thoughts on why you see so many phones out in the attack. Visual internet has been a part of this group’s practices since the inception. Of course it was there yesterday.


Done. This was pretty scattered and haphazard, so thanks for reading this far. Maybe one day I’ll put this together in an organized way.