alt-right:
The term "alt-right" and the people claiming its mantle had already been gaining visibility in the media before Clinton's speech. They were primarily seen as an amorphous community with an inclination for vicious online trolling, with some roots in fringe-right ideologies. But when Clinton thrust the alt-right into the national spotlight, she did no favors for the media, which has struggled to cover the ragtag coalition that has claimed the term.
In March 2016, Breitbart's Milo Yiannopoulos and Allum Bokhari posted a 5,000-word explainer/defense of the alt-right, ascribing to it intellectual roots in the neo-reactionary, human biodiversity and ethno-nationalist movements. Several other outlets like Vice, Vox, and National Review posted their own explainers.
In alt-right speak, the term "spicy boi" is meant to lampoon political correctness. It refers to a Change.org petition to rename fire ants to "spicy boys" because, as the petition helpfully explains, "It's 2016, we have 36 genders...why aren't we calling fire ants spicey boys?" As for the spelling of boi, that's just internet for boy. The petition currently has more than 60,000 signatures.
if the primary purpose of the alt-right is to provoke, then attention is their life force, and media attention their fuel. Which means that simply by reporting on the alt-right, the media itself may not only legitimize them, but play right into their hands.
"Getting a journalist to repeat a racist meme is part of the game," says Whitney Phillips, the author a book about 4chan and troll subcultures called This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things. "It's part of the goal."
Creating mischief online may seem like a benign use of the alt-right's power, but if 60,000 people (or bots) signed a petition to rename fire ants, what happens when those same users are mobilized to question Hillary's Clinton's health or attack journalists unfavorable to Trump?
"There's a very small ideological core," says Shapiro, and its fundamental ideology is that "Western civilization is an ethnic and racial feature, not a philosophy that can be extended to all people."
Nevertheless, Shapiro says the vast majority of alt-righters are motivated less by ideology than by an itch to instigate. They like Trump because of his ability to get away with the kind of speech they revel in. There is a difference between 4channers out to trigger "Social Justice Warriors" and resist political correctness, and ideological ethno-nationalists and white supremacists, but once they've been corralled under the same label, each amplifies the influence of the other.
While it's not always easy to distinguish the meme warriors from the idealogues, it's important to aim to draw distinctions between them