Contemporary terrorism is no longer driven by structured ideologies, but by a radical form of nihilism that finds its ultimate purpose in violence itself. From online communities that fuel desensitisation to attacks conceived as viral performances, a scenario emerges in which subversion and chaos become ends in themselves, stripped of any political project. But what happens when destruction loses all purpose and turns into a language? In this new article from the “Strong Words” column, Pietro Cattaneo analyses the phenomenon of Nihilistic Violent Extremists, exploring its cultural and digital roots while questioning the role of the media in an ecosystem that risks amplifying its reach.
“You can’t go on like this forever. It hurts too much. You need some relief from the unrelenting doom. You start to imagine what comes after this system fails. That’s the world you need to prepare for, not this one. If the present reality is corrupt and dying, then you are no longer bound by its moral or ethical restraints.”
Elle Reeve
So writes the journalist Elle Reeve in “Black Pill” when commenting on the apparent lack of motives behind the most recent terrorist episodes in the US. These are multiform and widespread, culminating in the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in July 2024 and in the homicide of Charlie Kirk in September 2025. However, they were preceded by several murders and mass killings: a new generation of terrorism that venerates subversion in itself and mistakes its totalisation for revolution – a phenomenon that mainstream media are struggling to rationalize, given the inability to match them to a label, or to a political alignment.
Three are the defining features of such a movement: post-ideological nihilism, an accelerationist orientation and online radicalization. We at Strong Words want to echo the voices of journalists and scholars that have highlighted its peculiarity – dedicating attention, above all, to Simon Purdue, Marc-André Argentino and Charlie Warzel. They stand out for trailblazing and lucidity, and what follows draws largely from their works.
To begin, however, one should call things by their proper name. Indeed, already in April 2025, the American Justice Department labelled the movement “Nihilistic Violent Extremists” (NVEs), defined as: “Individuals who engage in criminal conduct (…) in furtherance of political, social or religious goals that derive primarily from a hatred of society at large and a desire to bring about its collapse by sowing indiscriminate chaos, destruction, and social instability.”
The term, as denounced by Ken Klippenstein, is partly tendentious, as it risks obscuring the Neo-Nazi influences in communities of this kind – where secondary aims are frequently overwritten onto the desire for violence, often unconsciously instrumentalised. Klippenstein even suggests that the definition aims to distract from formulations predating the current Administration, more suited to prosecuting Trumpist violence – such as that of January 6, 2021.
Still, it is worth acknowledging – as Jacob Ware does – that the denomination fills an important classificatory gap long noted. It boasts, indeed, the great merit of focusing attention on the self-referential character of these strikes, directed toward violence in itself, rather than to an ideology’s fulfillment.
Argentino’s primary contribution, first of all, lies in the surgical isolation of such absence of ideology. What makes the new violence nihilistic is an “anti-telic”, post-ideological motivation: disconcerted by the apparent lack of meaning in the surrounding world, NVEs accept the lack of a purpose up to purporting it – more or less consciously. It is a rejection of society as a whole. Unlike other accelerationists, the collapse of the State is not longed for to rebuild something else, be it a utopia or the caliphate. On the contrary, it draws its own reason in itself – in entropy, anomie and violence:
“Collateral suffering is not a means to an end; it is the end.”
Marc-André Argentino
Argentino underlines the fundamental role of nihilism as the prerequisite of new forms of violence: the delegitimization of all morality removes barriers such as self-preservation, ethics or the need to gain consensus – thus pushing attacks to the most unrestrained sadism and spectacularism.
In the search for such apocalypse without an epilogue, NVEs’ unavoidable means is accelerationism – the pursuit of violent acts as a way to subvert systems through chaos: a strategy adopted by several other extremist movements. To correct Argentino, suffering is both the means and the end. NVEs aim to overwhelm the system with attacks that are difficult to prevent, but easy to carry out, so as to undermine trust in the State’s protection and exasperate public debate. Unpredictability, the mediatisation of brutality and ease of replication are key elements, in this new, American, Strategy of Tension.
The community on 4chan, Discord, Telegram and Reddit the attackers frequented – Warzel emphasises – are the principal drivers of the phenomenon. We cannot disregard them, if we aim to fully grasp the problem in its complexity. Above all, for the detachment from reality they produce: inurement—desensitisation to violence—is the primary source of NVEs’ nihilism. It is achieved through the constant exposure to explicit material as well as through its gamification.
Second, the attackers’ chronic online presence suggests a shift in the sense of reality from the “material” to the digital sphere: when one’s entire social and existential horizon is reduced to a webchat, an admin’s approval gains more relevance than a person’s life – to which the desensitisation is total. This inspires action in the former to observe the effects on the latter sphere – much like television produces trash content only to generate social media engagement.
Most importantly, online communities affect the way NVEs conceive society and themselves, which is a crucial aspect of their radicalisation: their behaviour is assimilable to that of a fandom, of an online subculture – with its own memetic grammar, inside jokes, lore, etc. – venerating terror and its perpetrators. NVEs often know no other language than that of the Internet, and possess its categories only: in the eyes of a school shooter livestreaming their strike, the attack is nothing but a template; the attacker nothing but a content creator. A +1 on a “body count”.
Under this view, the revealing dynamic is also, as Il Post reports, that of trolling, and of shitposting – the practice of sharing low-quality content to provoke the audience’s anger and confusion. Tyler Robinson, Kirk’s murderer, inscribed on his bullets phrases like “if you read this you are gay LMAO,” later commenting:
“The fuckin messages are mostly a big meme”
Just as, a year earlier, a Minneapolis shooter had decorated his equipment with «skibidi» and the “Lemmy Face”: ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
The troll’s objective is not to communicate, but rather to provoke a reaction, a decrypting attempt. Similarly, the attacker takes advantage of the media’s digital illiteracy to gain visibility and advertising space. In an article on Robinson himself, Warzel commented:
“The point is for people to see it, for people like me to write it down so that people like you can read it and feel something, be it shock, outrage, confusion, or sadness.”
Charlie Warzel
Among the phenomenon’s manifestations, the political attack is nothing but the most sensational. We witnessed it in Robinson’s case, where the assassination was followed by a flurry of accusations and speculation, rather than by a real attempt at understanding. This is the game of violence’s literal virality, through which online communities are fed new members, while their veterans are encouraged toward imitation. The attack is a performance requiring an audience. Quoting Dave Cullen, the author of “Columbine”, Warzel summarises:
“As you read this, a distraught, lonely kid somewhere is contemplating an attack – and the one community they trust is screaming, ‘Do it!’”
Charlie Warzel
In this sense, mass media’s duty is to recognize their responsibility: preferring monetizable sensationalism over genuine comprehension means playing the attacker’s game, indulging their intentions. In this sense, mass media’s duty is interpretation, even before information: raising awareness, stimulating media literacy, recognising the emergency. Avoiding the trap of political blame on behalf of the sanitary cordon. In this sense, this very article is both an intention and a warning: when it will be our turn, we must be ready.
Hi everyone! I am Pietro and I am currently pursuing my bachelor's in international politics and government (BIG) here at Bocconi University. I am currently in search of a synopsis for "Pietro".
I have loved writing since my earliest years. In all its forms: poetry, novels, journalism. Here at Tra i Leoni I am fulfilling a dream, bringing my passions together, doing what I like the most and what I do best.
At twenty, our words about political, economical and philosophical matters cannot be completely ours: we cannot avoid to infer on something previously said by experts with years of experience. We cannot avoid derivativeness.
If it’s impossible to avoid it, Strong Words is born to embrace it. The aim is not to write something original, but being original in offering a new perspective on articles, papers and books that have already explored the complexity of our world
Every two weeks on Sunday.
4chan, Charlie Kirk, Nihilism, NVEs, President Donald Trump, reddit, Strong Words, Tra i Leoni
Contemporary terrorism is no longer driven by structured ideologies, but by a radical form of nihilism that finds its ultimate purpose in violence itself. From online communities that fuel desensitisation to attacks conceived as…
Contemporary terrorism is no longer driven by structured ideologies, but by a radical form of nihilism that finds its ultimate purpose in violence itself. From online communities that fuel desensitisation to attacks conceived as…
