Anonymous Catholic Twitter Accounts
An unholy guide to the strange world of performative piety…
I recently wrote a user-guide for those of us who like to tweet in good faith under our own names. It was some of my best work, if I may say so myself.
Nearly every Catholic public figure or journalist has come in contact with a strange phenomenon: a plethora of aggressive bad faith anonymous accounts who all seem connected and all push a very clear and similar agenda with very unclear spelling and punctuation (why *do* they all hate full stops at the end of sentences so very much?)
All of these accounts are happy to troll others and advocate homophobic, misogynistic, and racist world views under the guise of anonymity. To me, this looks like astroturfing; the artificial creation of a network repeating and amplifying talking points to make it appear as though some world views are more popular than they are and to cow those who dare to speak otherwise.
Here’s a run down of the main types of anonymous account…
Anonymous Accounts with Frog/Pepe* Profile Pics
Underage perverts. The worst takes you’ve ever seen. Racist. Misogynistic. Bad faith trolls. Probably fifteen-year-olds in their mother’s basement sitting in cheeto-dust stained pyjamas even though it’s long-past 12 noon on a weekday.
*In the original Twitter thread I called this ‘Keke’ not ‘Pepe’ — sorry for not being totally up to scratch on 4Chan lingo, I guess…
Anonymous Tradwives/Pick Mes
Always a feminine avatar, usually — but not exclusively — from Renaissance art or similar. Seemingly desperate to get married/performative anti-feminism to attract strapping sperm-filled trad-boy. It’s actually just internalised misogyny. Buys pretty rosaries to post pictures of on the Gram but never gets round to using them to pray. Usually less than 100 followers.
Anonymous Homestead/Paleo Trad
Individuals with a combination domination/submission — breeding/lactation fetish. Try to claim that their fetish is an ideology when it’s just a fetish. Diet like a German shepherd yet still out of shape. Wouldn’t last five minutes if actually had to run a farm. One minute they’re talking about canning food and churning butter but soon enough they segue to how the Third Reich was misunderstood, actually…
Anonymous Aging Male/Divorced Dads
Someone’s dad but not going to use own name due to ongoing custody battle. Pompous, self-righteous and lacking in self awareness, humour and the irony of their online behaviour. It’s little wonder this person does not see their children… Profile pic of the family pet.
Anonymous Religious Life LARPers
The opposite of theHomestead/Paleo/Tradwives/Pick Mes. Those guys and gals who just can’t wait to get into the monastery, nunnery, religious community, abbey etc. There’ll be no semen for this crowd! (Well, maybe not for the future nuns, we all know what goes on in Seminaries…) Entire feeds made up of endless displays of performative piety to the point it’s just sickening. It’s almost fetishistic. These guys and gals want you to know how religious they are — they *need* you to know how religious they are. Endless pictures of chapels, religious art, and saints. Profile pics usually dead saints, nuns etc. Bragging about how many times they go to Mass. We get it; you’re religious.
#stthereseoflisieuxismyidol #futurecarmelite #nunsrule #discernment #discerning #vocation #vocations
Scot
One ‘t’. He doesn’t need a second. No sense of humour whatsoever. Does not read articles beyond the title.
Anonymous Crusader
Very religious medieval knight/classical art profile pic. Papal flag/bleeding hearts everywhere. Bible/religious quotations everywhere. Wishes they were born in Midde Ages so they could go on literal crusades which have less to do with Christianity and more to do with their fantasises about killing Muslims.
Anonymous Holier Than Thous
The intellectuals of the anonymous trolls. Like to police other people’s behaviour from the safety of anonymous account. Probably anon because their job would fire them immediately if they saw the sanctimonious schlock they post on Twitter. “Are you even Catholic…?” Tells you to pray but little evidence of a rich prayer life on their own feeds. Pretend they’re senior partners, actually junior clerks.
Miscellaneous Anonymous Reactionaries
Very sure of themselves. Judgy. Condescending. Humourless. Overreactors. Usually all at the same time. Profile pics usually art, old photos or missing entirely.
Anonymous Weirdos
Genuinely creepy, aggressive, and sinister accounts. Profiles get removed when discovered by wife and/or parole officer.
Anonymous Train Guy
Asked to be put on this list.
Anonymous Anime Profile Pics
Sometimes sweet and just into cartoons and video games. Sometimes malignant, sinister, and mostly into racism and little Japanese girls. Not as embarrassed about their latent paedophilia as they should be. Say they love Christ, but he would take one look at their profile and send them straight to hell — and they know it! There are just so many of them… Who knew small communities of ultra-religious Catholics were really into hentai?
I can understand wanting to be an anonymous troll, really I can. A vent for all that anger and frustration. A place to say all the things you can’t say in polite society. I just don’t see how you can have an anon troll account and pretend you’re still a Christian of any kind let alone assert you’re a better Christian than anyone else. It’s not that these accounts are racist, misogynist and homophobic that surprises me; it’s that they’re festooned with crosses, burning hearts and the papal flag.
All of these accounts have certain patterns in common:
They tweet exclusively about certain topics and lack other topics you would see from someone in their purported age and demographic.
They really hate full stops at the end of sentences and generally have inconsistent punctuation.
Most of them associate themselves with ‘traditional’ Catholicism, claim they attend the Extraordinary Mass, and consider Pope Francis unfavourably.
Plenty of overtly misogynistic, anti-feminist, and racist tweets. Even the users who are purportedly ‘female’ show deep signs of internalised misogyny.
They have followers and following list made up almost enitrely of other anonymous accounts. Together they amplify a distinctive world view.
Userhandles are almost all anonymous, unrelated to usernames and often just a jumble of letters and numbers.
Conversing with anonymous accounts is like speaking to someone in a balaclava - they might just be wearing it because they’re cold, or they might be wearing it because they have malicious intent. They might be who they claim to be, they might be one Russian at a bot farm in Seversk. People tend to afford more good faith to other users online than they would ever do to an anonymous stranger in real life. Don’t do that. Digital distances are closer than you think.
There are many good reasons people may want to be anonymous online: their job, don’t want their other family to find out etc. But how are we supposed to know what their intentions are or take them at their word? If you feel so uncomfortable using your own name online, you should probably ask yourself why you’re using social media in the first place.
Better to err on the side of caution and assume anon accounts aren’t your friend if you don’t know them and they’re not using their own names and faces. Especially if they’re aggressive, don’t engage in good faith and seem overly sensitive to critiques of their world view. I suspect that many anons are malicious bot/sock puppet accounts. It’s statistically impossible for small, insular ultra-religious communties to have so many accounts. Better to mute and let them scream into the void!
Thank you for reading — I hope you found my thoughts interesting. You can find links to my other work here: https://linktr.ee/sayde.scarlett
