Internet culture is, for most people, the most attractive thing to do at any time of the day or night. When the majority of Americans are addicted to smartphones and social media, they are not turning them off. Even if you personally participate little in internet culture, your neighbors are likely being reshaped on internet culture’s terms without even realizing it. Sooner or later, you will encounter the formative effects of internet culture in your life. Are you prepared to share the Gospel, defend the Christian faith, and make mature disciples of Christ against a backdrop of the fraternity, fandom, and fantasy that internet culture provides?

Try to define the word “religion”.

If you have a hard time coming up with a good definition, you’re not alone. “Religion” is notoriously difficult to define; philosophers, theologians, anthropologists, sociologists, and historians all answer the question in a different way. But imagine if I said, “Well, since there is no universally agreed-upon definition of ‘religion’, religion doesn’t exist.” You’d think I’d gone mad even if you weren’t an academic. Religion is everywhere! It may be hard to define, but you know it exists without having to think twice about it.

Now, try to define “internet culture”. Again, if you have a hard time coming up with a definition, that’s okay. Like “religion,” “internet culture” is challenging to define, and like “religion”, it’s definitely real.

The secular world recognizes that internet culture exists, and a new generation of writers and content creators have found immense success by trying to answer the question, “What do we do about it?” In contextualizing events and artifacts of “internet culture” for the masses, writers like Charlie Warzel, Casey Newton, Taylor Lorenz, and Ryan Broderick have created enormous audiences for themselves by taking the weird, niche, and/or dangerous aspects of internet life seriously. Dozens of highly successful YouTubers have followed suit, such as Tiffany Ferguson, Jenny Nicholson, Kurtis Conner, Wendigoon, and Supereyepatchwolf—just to name a few.

Christian thinkers and writers recognize the power of the internet and have been at the forefront of writing about the dangers of smartphone addiction, excessive social media use, and internet pornography. But where secular internet culture writers often approach their topics from a live-from-the-scene-of-the-crime perspective, Christian writers are frequently on the outside looking in. Both perspectives are important, but if we want to seek and save the lost where they are found, we cannot approach internet culture solely from the safety of the sidelines. Someone needs to call an ambulance, like a lifeguard team rescuing a drowning swimmer. Someone needs to be prepared to do CPR, but none of that matters if someone isn’t willing to dive into the water to bring the victim to the surface first.

The Three “Fs” of Internet Culture

One way scholars study “religion” is to look for common categories that religions share despite their differences. Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism are all mutually exclusive religions with beliefs that are incompatible with each other. Still, each has a category for “holy texts,” “sacred spaces,” and even a “goal” to work towards. These categories can stand independently and overlap with other religious categories.

We can take a similar approach to “internet culture”, and the nearly limitless internet sub-cultures. Though far from exhaustive, we can better understand “internet culture(s)” by examining three categories: fraternity, fandom, and fantasy.

Fraternity

American history is replete with fraternal orders—more casually known as “social clubs” or sometimes “secret societies”—that served as important community centers of power alongside churches and schools. Organizations like the Knights of Columbus, Lions Club International, and even the Ku Klux Klan sought to give like-minded Americans a place to belong and work together for a common goal, whether for charity through community service or reinforcing white supremacy. While most of these organizations were originally men-only (hence “fraternity”), parallel orders for women or women-only social clubs, such as sororities on college campuses, also existed. Each of these groups has its rites of initiation, vocabulary, customs, and expectations for how a good member participates in the group.

Discord servers, subreddits, and group messaging apps function as the “fraternal orders” of internet culture. Whether based on fandom, discussed below, or shared occupation, these groups exist to bring like-minded people together in a communal space for a communal purpose. Like any real-world fraternal order, each of these spaces has its initiation rites, vocabulary, customs, and expectations of its members. Of all the various subreddits, Discord servers, and group chats I participate in, no two are alike.

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