> fail to make it big and remain a niche thing for those trolls who enjoy the edginess,
It would fail on those terms as well due to irrelevance: When your political agenda consists of annoying and offending "the other", they need to be present to take offence. If they're not listening, where's the fun?
The "echo chamber" aspect takes all the fun out of the performative cruelty.
You are making an assumption that it's primarily about performative cruelty. But I would guess a non-trivial amount of them are just looking for a place where they feel safe talking about what they believe. Every slice of the political/cultural spectrum has it's trolls but they trolls are not representative of the general population.
I may think much of what the other side says is reprehensible but I can generally tell when the speaker is trolling vs just speaking their mind.
I like both points here. Twitter gets traction because professional trolls / grifters use it to build their personal brand.
They are frequently newspaper columnists, authors, and TV pundits who benefit directly or indirectly from have a large number of followers (whether they following in agreement or follow out of outrage, it matters not).
Sadly this is true of the left as well as the right; they are all selling something.
These Professionals need large mainstream audiences, which is why they love twitter and twitter loves them, but they are a different animal to the tribalists who want to satisfy their need to mix with like minded people.
Until the fringe sites enable the former as well as the latter it's not immediately obvious how they remain viable.
Is this a serious question? Do you honestly believe the left has no agenda or that “mainstream news” is not effectively propaganda?
The news business depends on division to thrive. Division and anger drives clicks and eyeballs. Oh, and let’s not forget the billions of dollars in political advertising that goes into the pockets of corporate news organizations and social media companies — the very same entities that are fomenting the division that necessitates the advertising in the first place. It’s a rage cycle.
As a starting point I would recommend reading Matt Taibbi’s Hate Inc and subscribing to Glenn Greenwald’s substack. They’re two of the only left-of-center commentators who have not lost their integrity over the past five years, and their ideas are worth listening to.
I've seen what they post when they're "speaking their mind"
It almost always devolves into "jokes" about getting state approval to shoot immigrants, refugees, minorities in open ranges, or providing "helicopter rides" - a reference to dropping people from helicopters.
This is what currently unifies the right wing of US politics.
do note that this isnt that hard a barrier. The earliest reports of bad behavior were from the BBS days, with nazi forums targeting Jewish or holocaust focused boards/sites.
> When your political agenda consists of annoying and offending "the other", they need to be present to take offense.
I'm not sure what you mean by "the other". "The other" is an actual concept signifying people who are somehow excluded from society. Rarely do people get banned for going after "the other". Most of these people get banned for going after mainstream journalists and politicians. Many don't get banned for going after anyone at all. And many get shadow banned without any notice or explanation.
Secondly, I don't think people on the right consider what people like Milo (for instance) do to be performative cruelty. They see it as exposing hypocrisy. They see it as exercising their god-given right to free speech.
It would fail on those terms as well due to irrelevance: When your political agenda consists of annoying and offending "the other", they need to be present to take offence. If they're not listening, where's the fun?
The "echo chamber" aspect takes all the fun out of the performative cruelty.