How 'Anonymous' Went From Mischief Makers to a Force That Terrifies Corporations and Governments

Guy Fawkes mask, from V for Vendetta.

Photo Credit: Ben Fredericson at Flickr

 

Anonymous activists have become terrifying to the powers that be, despite (or perhaps because of) their apparent disorganization and probably in excess of their actual capacity.

February 1, 2012

The enigmatic Internet-driven collective Anonymous, thank goodness, has an anthropologist in its midst. For a few years now, Gabriella Coleman has been arduously participant-observing in IRC chat rooms, watching Anonymous turn from a prankster moniker to a herd of vigilantes for global justice. In an extraordinary new essay at Triple Canopy, “Our Weirdness Is Free,” she summarizes what Anonymous is all about this way:

Beyond a foundational commitment to anonymity and the free flow of information, Anonymous has no consistent philosophy or political program. Though Anonymous has increasingly devoted its energies to (and become known for) digital dissent and direct action around various “ops,” it has no definite trajectory. Sometimes coy and playful, sometimes macabre and sinister, often all at once, Anonymous is still animated by a collective will toward mischief—toward “lulz,” a plural bastardization of the portmanteau LOL (laugh out loud). Lulz represent an ethos as much as an objective.  READ MORE