精品SM在线影片 graduate student in linguistics applies painstaking analysis to alt-right, white-supremacist groups that popularized a clipped version of an antiquated word
In 2017, TV late-night host Stephen Colbert mocked then-White House advisor Steve Bannon for calling Jared Kushner, the former president鈥檚 son-in-law, a 鈥渃uck.鈥� Colbert dubbed Bannon鈥檚 shenanigans a TCM, or 鈥渢otal cuck move.鈥�
That joke might have drawn as much confusion as laughter, because the meaning of 鈥渃uck鈥� can be hard to discern.
Maureen Kosse, a PhD student in linguistics at the 精品SM在线影片, has spent years studying the evolution of 鈥渃uck鈥� in 鈥渁lt-right,鈥� or far-right, white-supremacist movements. She contends that those who use the word 鈥渃uck鈥� are telegraphing their belief that Jewish people seek to oppress and eliminate white people and that Black people want to overtake whites in a 鈥渨hite genocide鈥� or a 鈥済reat replacement.鈥�
Kosse argues that 鈥渃uck鈥� and similar terms are 鈥渄isguised as innocuous鈥� but are actually linguistic weapons employing misogynist and racist 鈥渉umor鈥� in the alt-right鈥檚 efforts to radicalize others.
Kosse鈥檚 analysis of the alt-right鈥檚 use of 鈥渃uck鈥� appeared in the academic journal听Gender and Language听last summer under the title: 鈥溾��.鈥�
As Kosse notes, 鈥渃uck鈥� stems from the antiquated term 鈥渃uckold,鈥� a noun meaning a husband whose wife is unfaithful.听
鈥淐uck鈥� became widely used after a 2014 controversy in which women working in the video-game industry were subject to a campaign of harassment, and a far-right media personality called one whistleblower鈥檚 husband a 鈥渃uck.鈥�
A screenshot from a slideshow explaining the meaning of terms used by the alt-right.
The epithet then proliferated in explicitly racist subreddit channels and took on the added implication of 鈥渨hite genocide鈥� or a 鈥済reat replacement,鈥� in which a 鈥淛ewish cabal covertly encourages white women to have children with non-white men in order to eliminate the genetic purity of white men,鈥� Kosse writes.
That conspiracy theory has been cited in several terrorist manifestoes, including that of the Christchurch, New Zealand, mosque shooter in 2019 and the Buffalo, New York, grocery-store mass-murderer, who targeted Black people.
鈥淚 argue that the link between 鈥榗uck鈥� and white genocide comes from a crucial intertextual relationship that remains under-analyzed in the literature: the imagery provided by interracial cuck pornography,鈥� Kosse writes.
Using a sociocultural linguistic analysis that combines linguistic anthropology and construction grammar, she traces how a misogynistic meme evolved to take on racist meanings. She explains how 鈥渁lt-right memes such as 鈥榗uck鈥� spread covertly racist online discourse by cloaking medieval sexual logic and racial anger in misogynistic humor.鈥�
Additionally, she reports how cuckoldry evolved from its medieval origins to its 鈥渞acialized appropriation in pornography,鈥� and analyzes data she collected from alt-right discussion groups since 2015 to show that constructions in which the term appears 鈥渃onvey racist meanings by recalling the imagery of interracial cuck pornography.鈥�
An excerpt from a 2017听op-ed in The Washington Post.
Additionally, she observes: 鈥淪uch constructions depend on a psychosexual metaphor that positions patriotism as protecting the nation from nonwhites and represents political capitulation as sexual shame.鈥�
Kosse鈥檚 data comes from personal observations of several U.S. alt-right and far-right digital platforms, including Reddit (/r/altright and /r/Identitarian), Voat, 4chan, 8chan/8kun and听The Daily Stormer.
In an October 2022 interview on a podcast called The Vocal Fries, Kosse noted that 鈥渃uck鈥� was used in ways that required a linguistic 鈥渇rame analysis.鈥� The term 鈥渃uck鈥� has a complicated frame structure, because it鈥檚 related to historical notions of ownership of women and consent, she told the podcasters.听
As she studied the use of 鈥渃uck,鈥� she said, 鈥淚 noticed it being used in ways that do not seem to be immediately related to the idea of a cuckold. I had trouble getting from A to B.鈥�
That was especially true when she saw the phrase, 鈥淭ed Cruz cucks again,鈥� a sentence that prompted her to conclude that, 鈥淪omething really strange is going on here.鈥�
In that case, 鈥渃ucks鈥� is used as an intransitive verb, meaning that it has no object. (鈥淚 exist,鈥� has no object and is an intransitive construction, while 鈥淚 dropped a ball鈥� has an object鈥攂all鈥攁nd is transitive.)听
Kosse also noticed other unusual formations, phrases like 鈥渇eminists cucking for Israel again鈥� or 鈥渃ucking for Muslims again.鈥� In those cases, 鈥渃ucking鈥� was being used like 鈥渟hilling.鈥�
As she told The Vocal Fries podcast, she noticed that whoever is doing the cucking or whoever is being cucked, 鈥淚t is happening because there is some outward force causing it to happen. You鈥檙e doing this because someone else tells you. You鈥檙e being humiliated, and you love it because you鈥檙e following what your overlords say.鈥澨�
She continued: 鈥淚n my data, I see it most frequently used against conservatives. It鈥檚 mostly a conservative-on-conservative insult for people like Ted Cruz, who are not considered sufficiently white supremacist enough for the alt-right faction.鈥�
An excerpt from a 2017 Washington Post op-ed.
In her article, Kosse cites several examples of intransitive use, including 鈥淭rump cucks in Israel,鈥� a usage that she identifies as coming from Holocaust deniers, and 鈥淭rump cucks on immigration, promises amnesty for illegal DACA invaders.鈥� In these cases, she notes, the verb 鈥渃uck鈥� is followed by a preposition denoting an arena in which the subject behaves like a cuckold: 鈥渋n Israel鈥� or 鈥渙n immigration.鈥�
鈥淭his syntactic pattern is similar to other verbs of submission, e.g., to give up on something, which supports the argument that 鈥榗uck鈥� is a syntactic blend,鈥� she writes.
In the case of 鈥淭ed Cruz cucks again鈥� and similar examples, Kosse employs a Construction Grammar framework to observe that when 鈥減reviously transitive verbs鈥� are used intransitively, readers must resolve 鈥渃onflict between linguistic cues which do not ordinarily compete during interpretation.鈥�
Thus, she notes, 鈥淭ed Cruz cucks again鈥� implies that Cruz has chosen to 鈥渃uck听himself听by acting against his own best interests.鈥�
鈥淎s revealed across the online data I collected, those 鈥榖est interests鈥� are what the alt-right perceives to be best for 鈥榳hite people鈥欌�攏amely, resistance to the cultural influence of a Jewish global elite whose support for social programs (e.g., immigration, welfare, feminism, taxation) is thought to undermine white European populations in the West,鈥� Kosse writes.
A 2017 Washington Post headline.
Additionally, she observes, those who participate in 鈥渁lt-right and manosphere digital spaces may be more likely to infer a racialized reading to 鈥榗uck鈥� given the preponderance of pornography and anti-Black racist discourse in their online spaces.鈥�
All of this can make it hard to discern what a person using the word 鈥渃uck鈥� means by it. But this is not a drawback but a feature of far-right discourse, Kosse argues, noting that the ambiguity 鈥渁ffords alt-righters a degree of plausible deniability as they circulate 鈥榗uck鈥� into other domains.鈥�
While the meaning is ambiguous to many, Kosse argues that it is 鈥減articularly legible to those the alt-right seeks to recruit: young, online, white men.鈥�
Maureen Kosse specializes in sociocultural linguistics, language and identity, language and power, conversation analysis, Old/Middle English and听French.
鈥淢any people from across the political spectrum have casually adopted the word 鈥榗uck.鈥� There may be some awareness of the context around cuckoldry, cuck pornography or replacement theory in these usages, but we can also reasonably assume that many people do not know of the word's connotations within the alt-right,鈥� Kosse says, continuing:听
鈥淪till others have adopted the term ironically, or to weaponize the concept against alt righters. I would say that regardless of any knowledge or intention, all usages of 鈥榗uck鈥� evoke racist and misogynistic frames of reference that are characteristic of alt-right discourses. In my opinion as a linguist, there is no way to appropriate expressions like 鈥榗uck鈥� without also circulating an alt-right perspective of the world (one that has already had enormous real-world consequences, as numerous white nationalist mass-murderers have cited replacement theory in their manifestos).鈥�
Cay Leytham-Powell contributed reporting for this story.
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