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The boogaloo movement, members of which are often referred to as boogaloo boys or boogaloo bois, is a loosely organized American far-right extremist movement. Members of the boogaloo movement say they are preparing for a coming second American Civil War, which they call the "boogaloo". Members use the term to refer to violent uprisings against the federal government or left-wing political opponents, often anticipated to follow government confiscation of firearms.

The movement consists of anti-government and anti-law enforcement groups, as well as white supremacist groups who specifically believe the unrest will be a race war. Groups in the boogaloo movement primarily organize online (particularly on Facebook), but have appeared at in-person events including the 2020 United States anti-lockdown protests and the May 2020 George Floyd protests, often identified by their attire of Hawaiian shirts and military fatigues.

Naming and identity

The term boogaloo is a reference to the 1984 cult film Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo, an unpopular sequel film that was largely viewed to be a near-exact copy of the original movie. Following the film release, adding "2: Electric Boogaloo" to a phrase became a joking reference to any unwanted or archetypical sequel. The boogaloo movement adopted their name from the belief there will be a second civil war; that is, "Civil War 2: Electric Boogaloo".

Members of the boogaloo movement also use other similar-sounding derivations of the word, including boog, boojihadeen, big igloo, and big luau, and have created logos and other imagery incorporating igloo snow huts, and Hawaiian prints. The names and the broader imagery are used by members of the boogaloo movement to avoid crackdowns and automated content flags imposed by social media sites to limit or ban boogaloo-related content. Members sometimes identify themselves at protests by wearing Hawaiian shirts along with military fatigues. They have also used other imagery popular among the far-right, such as the Pepe the Frog meme.

Beliefs and structure

Members of boogaloo groups typically believe in accelerationism, and support any action that will speed impending civil war and eventually the collapse of society. According to The Economist, to this end boogaloo group members have supported the "spreading of disinformation and conspiracy theories, attacks on infrastructure (such as that on New York’s 311 line) and lone-wolf terrorism." J.J MacNab, a George Washington University fellow researching anti-government extremist groups, notes that it is not a cohesive group, and views differ on a range of other subjects, particularly racism and attitudes to law enforcement. Some groups have been described as libertarian. Some boogaloo groups are also white supremacist and specifically believe that the "boogaloo" will be a race war, but there are others that condemn racism. Attempts by some elements of the Boogaloo movement to support anti-racist groups, such as Black Lives Matter, have been met with wariness and skepticism.

Some members of the movement claim that the group and its ideology are nothing more than online jokes, however, law enforcement and researchers maintain that people connected to the groups have been implicated in plans to commit real-world violence. The Tech Transparency Project has observed that, while public posts on boogaloo Facebook pages tend to be satirical, members of private boogaloo groups "exchang detailed information and tactics on how to organize and execute a revolt against American authorities." Some of the private groups ban the sharing of memes to keep conversation focused on serious topics. The NCRI has also commented on the mix of serious and joking content, writing, "This ambiguity is a key feature of the problem: Like a virus hiding from the immune system, the use of comical-meme language permits the network to organize violence secretly behind a mirage of inside jokes and plausible deniability."

According to the non-profit Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), groups belonging to the boogaloo movement organize on mainstream online platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Reddit, as well as on more obscure platforms such as 4chan. Bellingcat identifies Facebook as a particularly important platform for the movement, and that the movement numbers in the tens of thousands. The NCRI researchers also estimate the movement to have tens of thousands of members.

History

Extremism researchers first took notice of the word "boogaloo" being used in the context of the boogaloo movement in 2019, when they observed it being used among fringe groups including militias, gun rights movements, and white supremacist groups. This usage of the term is believed to have originated on the fringe imageboard website 4chan, where it was often accompanied by references to "racewar" and "dotr" (day of the rope, a neo-Nazi reference to a fantasy involving murdering what the posters view to be "race traitors"). Researchers from the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) found that the usage of the term "boogaloo" increased by 50% on Facebook and Twitter in the last months of 2019 and into early 2020. They attribute surges in popularity to a viral incident in November 2019, when a military veteran posted content mentioning the boogaloo on Instagram during a standoff with police, and to the December 2019 impeachment of Donald Trump. The boogaloo movement experienced a further surge in popularity following the lockdowns that were implemented to try to slow the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, and the Tech Transparency Project observed that the boogaloo groups appeared to be encouraged by President Trump's tweets about "liberating" states under lockdown. The Tech Transparency Project also found that 60% of boogaloo Facebook groups had emerged following the pandemic lockdowns, during which time they amassed tens of thousands of members. A Facebook spokesperson said that Facebook and Instagram had changed their policies as of May 1 to "prohibit the use of terms when accompanied by statements and images depicting armed violence."

On March 12, 2020, a boogaloo Facebook group leader named Duncan Lemp was shot and killed by police in a no-knock raid of his home in Potomac, Maryland. Police had obtained the search warrant based on a tip that Lemp was violating a restriction from possessing firearms, though Lemp's family has contested that he was under any such restriction. Lemp's family has also asserted that he was asleep when he was killed by police. Some far-right groups have theorized that Lemp was killed by police for his anti-government beliefs and his position in the boogaloo movement. J. J. MacNab, a fellow of the George Washington University extremism program, has described Lemp as a "martyr" of the boogaloo movement, and warned that the increase in anti-police sentiment among boogaloo group members following his death may lead to violence against the police in the "foreseeable future". A Facebook user who was later identified as Aaron Swenson was arrested on April 11, 2020 in Texas, after streaming a live video on Facebook in which he stated he was driving around looking for police officers to ambush. He was apprehended after a high-speed police chase, and found to be wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying loaded firearms and ammunition. Swenson had shared boogaloo memes on his Facebook page, and other members of the movement watched and commented during his livestream. Swenson had also posted a photo to Facebook the day after the shooting of Duncan Lemp, in which he wore a Hawaiian shirt and combat vest and used the hashtag "#HisNameWasDuncan".

Some boogaloo groups joined the protests against law enforcement that occurred across the United States in May and June 2020 in response to the killing of George Floyd. According to Vice, although the boogaloo groups tried to position themselves as allies of the Black Lives Matter movement, they generally avoided addressing police brutality as a racial issue. Some members of boogaloo groups said they were attending protests to provide protection, either to the protesters or to stores. Posts in some online boogaloo groups called for their members to loot police stations and set fire to government buildings; some encouraged actions emulating the "rooftop Koreans", a reference to Korean store owners who shot at looters from roofs during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. On May 30, three men who identified themselves as members of the boogaloo movement were arrested on terrorism charges. The men, who had been plotting since April to bomb an electrical substation, had decided instead to focus on the protests that were happening throughout the country in response to the killing of George Floyd. At an anti-lockdown protest in Las Vegas several days earlier, they had told a confidential informant that they intended to try to incite violence and kick off a riot at a George Floyd protest. They were arrested when they were found filling canisters with gasoline and creating Molotov cocktails on their way to such a protest on May 30, and each was charged with the federal crimes of conspiracy to damage and destroy by fire and explosive and possession of unregistered firearms. They were also accused in state court of felony conspiracy, terrorism, and possession of explosives.

See also

• QAnon
• Patriot movement
• Proud Boys

References

1. ^ Zadrozny, Brandy (February 19, 2020). "What is the 'boogaloo'? How online calls for a violent uprising are hitting the mainstream". NBC News. Retrieved May 30, 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
2. ^ Goldenberg, Alex; Finkelstein, Joel (February 2020). Cyber Swarming, Memetic Warfare and Viral Insurgency: How Domestic Militants Organize on Memes to Incite Violent Insurrection and Terror Against Government and Law Enforcement (Report). The Network Contagion Research Institute. Retrieved May 30, 2020.
3. ^ Charter, David (May 16, 2020). "'Boogaloo boys' prepare for next American civil war in Hawaiian shirts". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved May 30, 2020.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
4. ^ "Why some protesters in America wear Hawaiian shirts". The Economist. May 23, 2020. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved May 30, 2020.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
5. ^ Allam, Hannah (January 10, 2020). "'Boogaloo' Is The New Far-Right Slang For Civil War". National Public Radio. Retrieved May 30, 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
6. ^ "The Boogaloo: Extremists' New Slang Term for A Coming Civil War". Anti-Defamation League. November 26, 2019. Retrieved May 30, 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
7. ^ "'Boogaloo Boy' Arrested in Texas, Charged With Plotting To Murder Cops on Facebook Live". Southern Poverty Law Center. May 15, 2020. Retrieved May 30, 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
8. ^ Owen, Tess (May 29, 2020). "Far-Right Extremists Are Hoping to Turn the George Floyd Protests Into a New Civil War". Vice. Retrieved May 30, 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
9. ^ Truscott, Lucian K. (May 30, 2020). "A lynching without a rope has galvanized and divided America — and that's nothing new". Salon. Retrieved May 30, 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
10. Zimmer, Ben (August 9, 2007). "Phrasal Patterns 2: Electric Boogaloo". OUPblog. Oxford University Press. Retrieved May 30, 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
11. ^ Woodward, Alex (30 May 2020). "Why far-right protesters are wearing Hawaiian print". The Independent. Retrieved 1 June 2020.
12. ^ "Extremists Are Using Facebook to Organize for Civil War Amid Coronavirus". Tech Transparency Project. April 22, 2020. Retrieved May 30, 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
13. Timberg, Craig; Dwoskin, Elizabeth; Mekhennet, Souad (3 June 2020). "Men wearing Hawaiian shirts and carrying guns add a volatile new element to protests". Washington Post. Retrieved 3 June 2020.
14. Kuznia, Robert; Griffin, Drew; Devine, Curt (4 June 2020). "Gun-toting members of the Boogaloo movement are showing up at protests". CNN News. Retrieved 4 June 2020.
15. ^ Evans, Robert; Wilson, Jason (27 May 2020). "The Boogaloo Movement Is Not What You Think". Bellingcat. Retrieved 2 June 2020.
16. Green, Jordan (May 28, 2020). "'They want their civil war': Far-right 'boogaloo' militants are embedded in the George Floyd protests in Minneapolis". Raw Story. Retrieved May 30, 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
17. Newhouse, Alex; Gunesch, Nate (30 May 202). "The Boogaloo Movement Wants To Be Seen as Anti-Racist, But It Has a White Supremacist Fringe". Middlebury Institute of International Studies. Retrieved 2 June 2020.
18. Kunzelman, Michael (May 13, 2020). "Virus restrictions fuel anti-government 'boogaloo' movement". The Associated Press. Retrieved June 1, 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
19. Owen, Tess (2020-05-08). "The 'Boogaloo Bois' Are Bringing Their AR-15s and Civil War Ideology to the Lockdown Protests". Vice. Retrieved 2020-06-02.
20. ^ Egkolfopoulou, Maya; Sebenius, Alyza (May 12, 2020). "Facebook Violence Curbs Thwarted by Groups Using Code Words". Bloomberg. Retrieved May 30, 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
21. Sommer, Will (May 11, 2020). "Anti-Lockdown Protesters Now Have a 21-Year-Old Martyr". The Daily Beast. Retrieved May 30, 2020.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
22. Kunzelman, Michael (March 13, 2020). "Lawyer: Man killed by officer was asleep when police fired". ABC News. Retrieved May 30, 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
23. Felton, Emmanuel (April 23, 2020). "A Self-Proclaimed "Boogaloo Boy" Was Arrested After Allegedly Livestreaming His Hunt To Kill A Police Officer". BuzzFeed News. Retrieved May 30, 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
24. Zadrozny, Brandy; Collins, Ben (May 31, 2020). "Videos, threats, but few signs protests have been stoked by 'outsider' extremist groups". NBC News. Retrieved June 1, 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
25. Sonner, Scott; Price, Michelle L. (June 3, 2020). "Prosecutors: 3 men plotted to terrorize Vegas protests". The Associated Press. Retrieved June 3, 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)

External links

• The Boogaloo movement is not what you think, Bellingcat (May 2020)
• Boogaloo at Know Your Meme

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