What Drives People to Join the Rat King? - Theories and Discussion on Why Anybody is Friends with These People

[Feline Darkmage]

Here we go, I'm sure @Jaimas will have a lot to write about for this topic.

We all know that the Rat King is filled with toxic, arrogant individuals that don't really give much of a shit about most (if not all) of their online supporters and will on occasion rat them out or otherwise turn on them for the slightest reasons.

We know that the smaller fish in the pond are nothing more than useful idiots used by the more popular members to help shill their writing. Or used as part of an attempt at dogpiling people on twitter.

So what drives a person to encourage these people's behaviour?

And on the flip side: What drives the popular Rat Kingers to keep going on aside from having surrounded themselves with enablers?

I know it has a lot too do with being hardcore Social Justice losers, because a lot of Tumblrcows do the same exact things Rat Kings do.

Bonus: I've read stories about people who left Social Justice Activism because of the Social Justice Warriors or used to be SJWs and realized that wasn't a good path to take, have there been cases like that that are Rat King specific?

 

[GS 281]

The community that has formed around these people is generally incredibly inclusive. Most of these people have social and mental problems that make it difficult to become involved in other communities, so they all are sort of dependent on one another for support. Since they all have similar personal issues they are dealing with, they don't understand how inappropriate they are being when they are online acting like fools because they see how their friends are acting and will gauge how they should behave by how their friends do. They all accept this antisocial and inappropriate behavior, so that is why they stay in contact. There is also the general misunderstanding of what social justice is and how to approach it which pushes other people further from them, while galvanizing the rest of them.

 

[m0rnutz]

It almost seems like a cult in it's own way. It's a select group of individuals all kissing ass, with a hotline founder being a root in it's system. All of these individuals have had ties in some ways to each other and to some very dodgy shit. Be it running an imageboard, hanging out on 4chan, or dirty dealings in general, they all have a story.

It also seems to look like anyone who is a member has "hatched" a person, be it out of choice or as a means of indoctrinating themselves into this top-secret select group of friends. Even Zach has done it, and he looked for a while like he was hatched himself.

There really is nothing that drives them, I wouldn't think. They all want something from the others, and each other will milk and look for a way to get it out of one another. When one person reaches a point where they can't provide, they wait for a way to oust them as being "toxic". Sometimes it's just some paranoid schizo calling the shots on who to kick, such as how Kengle got kicked out for being a "chaser" and people like Zach joined in to block him.

I'm not going to doubt that somewhere along the lines, someone almost got tangled in the Rat King and ducked out before it was too late. @ThingyBorisYeltsin mentioned that Zach tried to crack him when he was younger, and that he got out by disagreeing. It's a common element that disagreeing over political ideology or the rainbow that is gender puts you in a tight spot under scrutiny.

I don't even think the rat king is selective to just here anyway. Even Tumblr has a rat king, if not dozens, ranging from TRC to IDCP, to shit like the Undertale/Evangelion fandoms and the enby/mlms. It's high school all over for them, because they never wanted to leave, and they can relive their youth through sick means if necessary. But like being friends with the popular crowd or getting in with the wrong ones, they are quick to cut you out and talk shit about you, as is the common norm.

A bit of a wallpost, but this has been my general understanding of it since I started posting in these threads. Each one seems to have that 4chan/lulzy vibe, like Wesley, NekoArc, and Nyberg, and comes from the edgy early 2000s. They're that bunch that used to make up a story in high school about shit like "oh yeah I hacked the white house using my DS and it was so easy, I just put my Fallout disc in the PSP", when in reality they are worthless and lazy with no beneficial trait about them.

 

[RatRoyalty]

This thread actually inspired me to join after I'd been lurking for a bit.

lets say im a rat who's too clean and normal for the king. since before gamergate id followed a lot of the folks you guys have discussed, and i guess i thought i was lulzy enough to be granted a thread here but after reading how awful some of my associates are im grateful to say that im not lulzy at all actually.

as for the topic at hand, people join the rat king because theyre lost, alone, and frightened, they bundle together for warmth, they feel deep down that theyre different and they long for a sense of belonging. this drives them to follow literal cult leaders like brianna wu or nora reed, or they start spouting political ideology they have no idea about. i can confirm that a lot of the commie troons havent actually read marx, or any theory really, theyre just in it to be edgy without offending anyone. its a toxic concoction of autism, mental illness, and following bad influences.

 

[King_Scrotus]

It's all part of a reaction, most members of the rat king are actually sub groups formed in the aftermath of other happenings. Like, what started this all was Anita stating a single, contentious opinion, gaming is sexist.

It's not necessary to get into why there was a fucking huge reaction to that, only that there was. And so people now had someone who was good and right, vs the faceless hoard of sexist meanies. So then the rat kings proper started forming, with Zoe riding off Anita's coattails while nominally not actually associating with her, while others formed their own in groups riding off Zoe's coat tails while not actually being associated with her, etc etc all the way down. All of them wanting to be noticed by the higher ups to get more attention. It's just advanced virtue signalling, I think. "Look at me, I'm on the right side, I'm saying the right things, please respond!"

Then there are also outliers that I've noticed, in not just this, but in SJW type groups in general, who genuinely used to be the sort of person these groups proclaim to be against, massive sexists, homophobes, right wingers, etc, and become radical for the opposite side in an effort to atone for their sin, in a way.

 

[Jaimas]

Rat Kings are cults. Cults of personality, mind you, but cults nonetheless. They excel at finding supplicants who are too socially weak or ineffectual on their own and give them a place to belong. This appeals to those who are socially awkward and in need of friends, and it's all too easy for some to exploit this. They forge a sense of community through common cause (Social Justice), the promise of fighting for a greater good, and by giving the cult members a place to belong (WE'RE ALL TRANS NOW). They actively try to convince people that following them will give them all their answers, and they trick their victims into believing it.

It's a cruel trap. Once they're in, they'll be radicalized.

Perhaps the most tragic element of the Rat Kings' membership is that one rarely becomes one by conscious choice. For the orbiters, most of them are socially-isolated and awkward. Many of them wouldn't be bad people or even lolcows if they had the presence of mind to distance themselves - but by that point many are too far in. Humorously, the ones that are ejected from their cult of personality by force (Gallant for example) are often so driven by ideology that they'll wind up in another one just out of that same need to belong.

 

[Oh Long Johnson]

You guys are using an awful lot of words to describe loneliness and degeneracy.

 

[WeaponsGradeAutism]

You guys are using an awful lot of words to describe loneliness and degeneracy.

It's a bit more than that. Like the curious case of Katelyn Burns. College educated and smart, probably one of the smartest Rat Kings we trapped. But his marriage was sabotaged the more he listened to people like Pedo Nyberg and trannie_moon.

The rat king is trying to pull people into the abyss with them. And sometimes, some of the rats lose the tail. Whether by resistance or open questioning.

Some of the rat king are educated and bright beings pulled into buggery by uneducated simps like Nyberg, Toren, Kjel, and Laurelai. These creatures find a weakened person and "crack" the "hidden trans". Honestly, these folks are far more evil than we ever could be.

 

[Erida]

I enjoyed this thread by replacing 'Rat King' with 'Kiwi Farms'.

People join online communities for different reasons - loneliness, shared interests, wanting to be heard or feel important, having opinions validated by others, and so on. Although our official thing is 'we're here to mock exceptional people online', I bet many of us also have other reasons for signing up and sticking around.

We, and other communities, share those core reasons but then the Rat King veers off with gross tmi oversharing, ebegging, lack of self-awareness and all the other classic lolcow traits. They use each other but masquerade it as 'support'. There's rarely actual friendships formed, there's the leaders and orbiting 'yes men'.

I will never understand those who unironically join or orbit the Rat King because I'm an outsider who sees these crazy, hypocritical, bitchy and, as @Jaimas said, cult-like, hysterical morons. But also, on the flip side, they're in their bubble and will think similar of us.

...Although they also think we're all white, male, basement dwelling, transphobic, racist, sexist Literal Nazis because that's the compulsory, delusional groupthink in action.

People, especially online, eventually find their own kind and flock together. Whether you're a weirdo who shares bathroom #analrips tales/thinks you're a cute fops/are a bearded gnome playing at being a girl, or a weirdo who laughs at them.

 

[Quasar]

Lots of text... you probably shouldn't click this:

Spoiler: Long thoughts, probably stupid

I honestly don't think many of the members of the various rat kings were actually driven to join. They're more like unnecessary sediment that is congregating and being left behind by the "normal" waterstream.

It seems to me that the majority of the lolcows we follow (and all of the rat king members) have a few traits in common which both serve to drive them to congregate together (at least digitally) while driving them away from more normal people.

The majority of members have a need to be recognized as an authority by other people. This is why so many share SJW ideals (although the other "side" has the same type of people, they just tend to be more insular when they group). Once they are able to start proclaiming that they are coming to the side of historically oppressed people, they can always be "right" no matter what they say.

They also tend to no be able to accept someone vocally disagreeing with them. This is another reason for the shared SJW ideals. Once bought into, what beliefs you are allowed to hold and which you are not are made perfectly clear, and they will turn on violators of this rule as a group. This is why we have several different levels of rat king.

Next, this is a group of people who, for whatever reason, absolutely need to belong to a specific community. This they accomplish, unless they violate the rules too many times and are quickly outcast. At this point, they've already pissed off everyone else in order to carve out their rat king position, so they quite frankly have pretty much nowhere else to go. Hell, for an example of this, look at Laci Green. She recently made a (imo) half assed try at moving toward the "middle" of the SJW/Feminist vx the Anti's argument, and actually said a bunch of stuff in a recent video that a lot of people here would love to hear...but imagine what would happen if she actually showed up here to have direct dialogue with us. Never happen. And on the other hand, it took less than a day for at least two rather prominent SJWs (Steve Shives and Kat Blaque) to make videos decreeing her a heretic. She's put herself into a position where she will either land in a rat king that agrees with her new stances or she'll quickly fade into unimportance, because she'll never be able to be a member of both camps.

Lastly, this part is a trait not shared by all, but it seems to apply to most rat king members. They have the need to actually accomplish anything they desire by applying the bare minimum effort. Their failures due to this are always explained away as "misfortunes" or "oppression" or "someone else's fault", but what it comes down to is that they are unwilling to do whatever means are actually necessary in order to accomplish their ends. As an example of this, look ad David Gallant's video game. There is absolutely no way a grown man should have presented work of that quality to anyone and expected praise, let alone money. This type of thing is a running theme with many cows, but some actually try to succeed. I can't think of any rat king member that does.

Basically, the tl;dr is that the rat kings aren't like some sort of brotherhood that those people were driven to become members of. The rat kings are more like slums, that the members have drifted to because they express little value to better places and no actual work ethic to become worth it

 

[Android raptor]

I think the rat king, like sjw-dom in general, is largely populated by toxic, abusive assholes exploiting social justice as a way to get away with being awful and the well-meaning idiots who enable them. All you have to do is claim to be trans or some other popular minority and you can be as awful a person as you want and still have people licking your ass, because you're a poor oppressed victim of the evil cishet white males and every awful thing you do or say is "justified anger". Never mind that in reality these types usually have pretty cushy lives (and if they don't it's usually their own faults I.e. Phil choosing to be homeless as a fashion statement), on paper they're oppressed victims who might be literally murdered if they leave their homes.

It's not that they turn into horrible people after joining rat kings IMHO, it's that the reason they join rat kings is because they're already awful and looking for a community that lets them have their cake and eat it too.

 

[AnOminous]

:autism:

Trans people are comparatively rare, and in fact often actually literally autistic. So they're pretty short on friends in the real world, especially if they are dumb enough to consider "cis scum" (i.e. 99.7% of the population at least) as unworthy of even associating with. Then the Rat King amplifies their antisocial autism with its frenzied hatred of everything non-Rat King.

I'd imagine trans people who actually have friends and a social life and a career are way less likely to become Rat Kings.

You just wouldn't associate with scum like this if you had alternatives.

 

[CatParty]

The rat king isn't the entity itself. The rat king is a cancer that grew within the support network for transfolk. it all boils down to people exploiting other people's empathy and stirring drama when they want attention.

 

[RatRoyalty]

The rat king isn't the entity itself. The rat king is a cancer that grew within the support network for transfolk. it all boils down to people exploiting other people's empathy and stirring drama when they want attention.

This. There are negative aspects to all subcultures, and the Rat King is definitely the Kowloon Walled City of the LGBT community

 

[Southern Belle]

i've always viewed it like this: there's nowhere else to go but rock bottom once you chop your dick off so why not drag as many people down with you as possible. Thus, anyone within the vicinity of a rat king member gets dragged int it's orbit an sucked into the abyss against their will, force fed ideology, and become one with the rat king. and thus the cycle continues.

 

[MysteriousStranger]

Go back to the defining metaphor: a ratking is a group of individual rats that stick so close together, eventually their tails become knotted together with filth and ratshit. Then they can't escape, no matter how they try.

Whether ratkings really existed in nature, or whether the specimens in museums are fakes, is a matter of long debate.

 

[GS 281]

i can confirm that a lot of the commie troons havent actually read marx

I am certain of this. Das Kapital is some dry ass reading and most people won't read it unless they actually have to. There are even primer books to prepare people to even read it. Seeing as most these people are high school dropouts and none of them have a degree in econ or sociology, I think it is safe to say that the extent of their understanding of Marx' writings is memes and wikipedia.

it all boils down to people exploiting other people's empathy and stirring drama when they want attention.

I couldn't say it better myself

 

[WeaponsGradeAutism]

Go back to the defining metaphor: a ratking is a group of individual rats that stick so close together, eventually their tails become knotted together with filth and ratshit. Then they can't escape, no matter how they try.

Whether ratkings really existed in nature, or whether the specimens in museums are fakes, is a matter of long debate.

Yes and no. A rat king in Germany was a man who used others to push his own agenda and status above the people he stepped on. Which is apt here, as well. The physical manifestation came to be later. But semantics aside, the term fits.

 

[Feline Darkmage]

A rat king in Germany was a man who used others to push his own agenda and status above the people he stepped on.

Source?

 

[WeaponsGradeAutism]

Source?

I'll have to look up the history. I believe the term used was Rottenkoenig... (My German is iffy, but I'll check sources for you.)

Edit: Tale is related to an old book rewritten in 1982 called Rats by Maarten Hart. I'm looking for a version for all of us to read. Although both stories run neck and neck.