6 Social Media Trends That Lead Women & Girls Down The Alt-Right Pipeline

Social media can sweep kids and adults alike down a river headed straight for the alt-right. The cultural conversation, seen on news stations across the country and in the popularity of Adolescence, is focused largely on boys.

But what about girls?

Girls face the same risk of falling down the alt-right rabbit hole, but the path can look different than it does for boys, where gym bros with podcast equipment reign supreme. Former social worker Jess Britvich took to TikTok to spread awareness of some of the female-oriented trends that can start the casual social media user down a slippery slope.

“These things aren't inherently conservative or, dare I say, fascist at times, but they can be the starting point for a very slippery slope,” Britvich said.

First, Britvich said to be aware of clean beauty and clean eating content. While it can start with a harmless interest in eating healthier or using more eco-friendly products, she says this can quickly veer into territory that is not backed by science.

“You can quickly slide down the slope to the alt right by engaging in content around distrust in regulatory bodies, anti-vax rhetoric, conspiracies around big pharma, and next thing you know, you think you're ‘making America healthy again,’” she said.

Next up: “trad wife” content. To some, this might seem obvious. But at first, “trad wife” creators might seem like your run-of-the-mill lifestyle influencer, when the actual reality is much darker.

“This quickly can slide into a conversation about promoting very rigid gender norms, anti-feminism and ideologies that contribute to Christian nationalism and white supremacy,” Britvich said.

“Trad wife” content also goes hand in hand with content that idealizes “soft living,” and tells women to access their “feminine energy.” While it can start from a place of attempting to resist “hustle culture,” it can easily fall into traditional, restrictive gender norms.

Many online homeschooling communities host similar issues, Britvich continued, and feed into classist and racist ideas that public schooling isn’t “good enough” — a particular concern considering the recent attacks by the federal government on the Department of Education.

She also warned against “skinny Tok” — a community on TikTok focused on dieting and exercise, and diet culture in general, as it can lead to glorifying thinness, which can lead to some eugenic ideas — as well as spirituality, tarot and crystal communities, which Britvich said tend to host antisemitic Q-anon conspiracy theorists.

“Enjoying and engaging in these things aren't inherently like conservative or alt right,” Britvich explained. “We need to be cognizant of how these can open doorways to rabbit holes and once the algorithm, kind of attaches on to you, it's slowly going to feed you more and more intense and more and more extremist rhetoric and ideology.”

Britvich’s comments were full of TikTok users who had noticed similar patterns themselves.

“‘Just a girl,’ ‘my silly arts degree,’ ‘girl math’ unfortunately falls under this,” one user said.

“My 54 yo mom slid down alt right content without even knowing cause she was looking at this spiritual posts,” said another. “Now she’s a non-vaxxer.”

“I’ll never forgive that they took my favourite things like cottage core, sustainable living, anti pollution, anti consumerism, and turned them into conservatism,” another said.

“Everyone posts now about ‘randomly getting conservative content’ these are likely some of the things causing it, just because you don’t know the dog whistles doesn’t mean the algorithm doesn’t,” another user added.

It’s important to keep tabs on your kids’ and teens’ social media algorithms, and your own. Having open conversations about the kind of content you and your family consumes, and encouraging critical thinking about the message it leaves you with, is one way to help avoid indoctrination into harmful ideologies.

“It is imperative we educate young women around this,” Britvich said.