Ministering to Mooks on the Age of the Internet of Beefs
This article was originally given as an address to the delegates and guests of the 31st Regular Meeting of the Athanasius Presbytery (CREC) on October 8th, 2024.
Earlier this fall I was introduced to an article that I wish I had read years ago. The article was published on a website named “RibbonFarm” at the beginning of of 2020 by Venkatesh Rao. The name of the article is “The Internet of Beefs”.
Some of y’all may be aware of this article or of the concept, but I was not until about 3 months ago.
In the article Venkatesh Rao describes what the “Internet of Beefs” is, how it works, and who its main participants are.
For me, the article worked something like the end of an M. Knight Shyamalan movie where you need to reframe how you understand the whole movie based on what has been revealed. Having now read “The Internet of Beefs”, I can’t look at Twitter (henceforth “X”) the same way anymore, and I think that’s a good thing.
What is “the Internet of Beefs”?
Let’s start by defining the term “Internet of Beefs”.
Unfortunately, Rao does not provide a cut and dry definition of the term, but you could define it the following way:
The “Internet of Beefs” is an ecosystem of perpetual online conflicts where polarized factions, represented by highly visible individuals and their supporters, engage in continuous, performative battles over ideologies, opinions, or controversies. These conflicts, often fueled by social media algorithms, thrive on outrage and attention-seeking behaviors, with little intention of resolution or constructive dialogue. The primary aim is not to resolve issues but to assert dominance in an endless cycle of virtual skirmishes.
If you spend any time at all on social media, it is hard to argue that this doesn’t precisely describe the majority of online conflict. If you’ve ever tried to engage in any level of “good faith” dialogue on X you may have found yourself in a conflict that you didn’t anticipate.
One reason why nothing gets resolved on Social Media is because the “Internet of Beefs” has a vested interest in making sure things don’t get resolved. The algorithms that feed us the “Internet of Beefs” thrive off of conflict and seek to create an endless cycle of skirmishes.
X (and other SM platforms) can give the impression that they exist to be a platform for dialogue. But the reality can often be quite different.
I’ll try to illustrate by drawing a comparison to the fight against abortion. I’m sure many of you have been frustrated by the fact that it doesn’t seem like some of the big organizations that supposedly exist to end abortion don’t really seem to want abortion to go away. I’m by no means the first to point out that if abortion was ended once and for all, these big anti-abortion organizations would cease to be necessary.
The “Internet of Beefs” operates in a similar way.
The reason why you can’t really have a conversation with a “beef-only thinker” is because, as Rao says, “Anything that is not an expression of pure, unqualified support for whatever they are doing or saying is received as a mark of disrespect, and a provocation to conflict.”
“A provocation to conflict”, that is what the “Internet of Beefs” is. It is an algorithmically induced digital gang war. But who are the gang members?
Mooks and Knights
While defining the IoB is helpful, there is a particular aspect of the IoB that I found particularly helpful to understand what is occurring online, especially on X.
Rao explains that, at its core, the “Internet of Beefs” is something of a feudal structure where participants seek honor and recognition more than they pursue a grand strategy.
Accordingly, it is a deep mistake to think that those who are participants in the “Internet of Beefs” are interested in having a constructive conversation. The reason this is the case is based on where a majority of the fuel for the “Internet of Beefs” comes from.
I just mentioned that Rao claims the IoB has a “feudal” structure, and he means this quite literally. According to Rao, the IoB is literally populated by two groups of people: “Knights” and “Mooks”.
Rao states that,
“The semantic structure of the Internet of Beefs is shaped by high-profile beefs between charismatic celebrity knights loosely affiliated with various citadel-like strongholds peopled by opt-in armies of mooks. The vast majority of the energy of the conflict lies in interchangeable mooks facing off against each other, loosely along lines indicated by the knights they follow, in innumerable battles that play out every minute across the IoB.”
In other words, the majority of conflicts on social media take place because some high profile figure (a “knight”) begins a skirmish. Then, in response to the skirmish, a whole host of followers (“Mooks”) comes to fight on behalf of their “knight”.
What is so informative in this economy, is that the goal of the “mooks” isn’t to win an argument or to convince the other side. Rather, the goal is to be recognized by the knight. To be elevated and highlighted for the role you played in the digital skirmish. It’s the digital version of “street cred”. As Rao puts it, “There is no higher honor for a mook than to be noticed by the knights they fight for. As a result, the fealty of the mook is the currency of the manorial economy of the IoB.”
Before moving on to why all this is relevant for pastors, but before doing so I’d like to lay out one more facet of the “Internet of Beefs”.
The “Internet of Beefs” as “Throwaway Culture”
In order to establish this last facet, I want to reiterate the conclusion of the last thing I quoted: “the fealty of the mook is the currency of the manorial economy of the IoB.”
At one level, using terms like “currency” and “economy” is simply a matter of speaking. However, it is important to understand that this really is an economy.
I will use X to show this. X makes money by selling advertisements. The more people who use X, the more revenue X can make. But what is X’s product? X’s product is the content of its users that bring people to X. Because of this, X rewards accounts that drive traffic to their platform. Algorithms tend to promote the content that brings the most people to the platform.
Because of this, many X users follow the practice of “Engagement Harvesting”. This is the practice of purposefully producing content that will “harvest” the most “engagement”.
The economy of the Internet of Beefs is an economy where “Knights” attempt to produce content that will get both their “mooks” and the “mooks” of their enemies to engage with their content. This is something like the phrase, “There’s no such thing as bad publicity”. On the Internet of Beefs, conflict is the name of the game; and there’s no such thing as a bad conflict.
Another way to view all this is to see that the Internet of Beefs is the online equivalent of a “Throwaway Culture”.
Here’s what I mean. In our consumer-driven culture, the way many companies generate income is by planning for their products to fail. Everyone’s smart phone is designed to last about 4-5 years so that you have to buy a new one. Most people don’t get their phones fixed, they simply “upgrade” to a new phone. This isn’t a “bug” it’s a “feature”.
The “Internet of Beefs” works along the same lines. Again Rao, “The conflict must be as impossible to terminate as the notional utopias being sought are impossible to actually attain. Beefing, in other words, is a lousy way to conduct or resolve an unsustainable conflict, but an excellent way to perpetuate and grow a sustainable one.”
On the Internet of Beefs, Knights perpetuate a world of conflict because they have an army of mooks who generate prestige for them. Knights are like gang leaders who bring young men into their gang. They offer attention and recognition to these mooks who are starved for such attention. In return, the knights are able to thrive in the “Throwaway Culture” of the Internet of Beefs.
The IoB isn’t about producing quality. It’s about producing one skirmish after another. It’s a throwaway culture of planned obsolescence. And just like our material consumer culture, the producers of digital consumer products (Knights) often reap financial reward.
Ministering to the Mooks
The main reason these things are worth considering is because I think there are many mooks in our churches.
And I think this is significant for one of the reasons that Rao gives later in his article. Near the end of his article he writes,
“The most dangerous players [in the IoB] are not the most celebrated knights, but the mookiest mooks, animated by a sincere belief that they too, are knights, unable to recognize their own essential inconsequentiality, and mistaking their literacy in a discourse for ironic above-the-ordinary-mook stature.”
I used to teach high school students and coach a high school soccer team. With each year I taught and coached, I became acquainted with the new lingo of that year’s “youth culture”.
Each year there would be some new way to call one thing good and another thing bad. This surprises no one. Adolescents often seek to form a language of their own in order to establish some sort of distance from their elders.
However, one thing that is typically missed by adolescents, is that their mastery of the latest lingo is of little to no consequence. Being able to pick up on the language of teenagers does not make someone a significant individual. However, if you try to convince a young man of this, you are unlikely to convince them.
This same reality is true of mooks. Mooks are, as the saying goes, “very online”.
People who are “very online” (which is an increasing number of young men) become incapable of recognizing the inconsequentiality of their online “accomplishments”. The mook spends a great deal of time online thinking they are fighting battles of significance. However, the reality is, they are largely being taken advantage of by knights whose approval and recognition they deeply crave.
While it is easy to look at these mooks and deride or dismiss them, I think we need to take a step back and consider what’s going on here and how we might minister to such mooks in our midst.
I drew a parallel earlier between the feudal structure of the Internet of Beefs and street gangs. To carry this forward I want to ask a question. What would drive a young man to enter into a gang? If I’m not mistaken, the overwhelming factor that leads young men to join a gang is fatherlessness.
I believe a similar reality is true for the mooks in our midst.
These young men are flocking to the approval of knights on the Internet of Beefs looking to fill a void that was left by their own earthly fathers. Fatherlessness is one of the biggest issues not just in our culture but also in our churches.
And it’s important that we remember that being reconciled to the heavenly Father doesn’t immediately and miraculously heal all the scars that people have experienced. Christians from fatherless and broken homes still deal with many of the same problems as non-Christians from fatherless and broken homes.
As we seek to minister to mooks in our churches, we should bear these things in mind.
I think one way to minister to these young men is to try and show them some of the realities I’ve presented this morning. Realizing you’re a mook is probably a big incentive to stop being a mook.
But I also wonder in what ways we are tempted to add fuel to the “Internet of Beefs” in our own digital lives. I do think there is a responsibility for church leaders to be somewhat aware and present in the digital public square. But I’m not fully convinced that there is a way to be in the “Internet of Beefs” but not of the “Internet of Beefs”.
Venkatesh Rao opens the article by comparing the “Internet of Beefs” to a “Crash-only Program”. This kind of software has no viable shut off mechanism. It can only be stopped by crashing it. Often this means unplugging the computer physically.
If the “Internet of Beefs” is a “Crash-only Program” is there a way to be in it but not of it? Or is the only real way forward to unplug (at least from X)?
Whether or not someone lands on that conclusion, I do think this should inform how we seek to minister to the mooks in our midst. And not just the mooks but likely many of our congregants who are too online (as mooks are to ideological battles on X so the ladies in your church are to a different kind of digital skirmish on Facebook and Instagram).
Our congregants are disciples of a digital dystopia. And their discipleship shapes the way they view themselves, their fellow church members, their pastors, and their churches.
I think what is called for is pastors and churches to encourage their congregants toward analogue forms of discipleship. We need to move people from the digital to the real. Real space, real time, and real people. We speak about the internet as digital “space”. But it isn’t “space” at all. Online, there is no space, no time, and no “limits”. There is a kind of “God complex” that is inherent to some aspects of digital life.
But humans are limited beings and it is good to be reminded of our limitations. Digital “spaces” are bad at this. Analogue spaces are good at it.
Too often mooks and denizens of the digital age think they are engaging with other people online. However, most of the time, they are really interacting with projections of their own imagination. On social media, you present an icon of yourself into the infinite void of the internet. Likewise you are presented with icons and images of other people. The digital world teaches you to interact with a fashioned image of the “other” not the real thing.As Ransom puts it so poignantly in C.S. Lewis’ That Hideous Strength when describes the marriage practices of modern couples, “each lies with a cunningly fashioned image of the other, made to move and to be warm by devilish arts, for real flesh will not please them”.
The sin of our digital age is the sin of every age. The sin of idolatry. We make subtly crafted images to please ourselves because the “real” that has been given to us does not satisfy. But idolatry is empty, just as the satisfaction we desire from digital space is empty.
So the word to knights, mooks, and all denizens of our digital dystopias is the same, turn away from images crafted by human hands (or keystrokes) to the one true and living God. He is the maker of heaven and earth and he has called us to the real.