How 'Anonymous' Went From Mischief Makers to a Force That Terrifies Corporations and Governments

Guy Fawkes mask, from V for Vendetta.

Photo Credit: Ben Fredericson at Flickr

The enigmatic Internet-driven collective Anonymous, thank goodness, has an anthropologist in its midst. For a few years now, Gabriella Coleman has been arduously participant-observing in IRC chat rooms, watching Anonymous turn from a prankster moniker to a herd of vigilantes for global justice. In an extraordinary new essay at Triple Canopy, “Our Weirdness Is Free,” she summarizes what Anonymous is all about this way:

Beyond a foundational commitment to anonymity and the free flow of information, Anonymous has no consistent philosophy or political program. Though Anonymous has increasingly devoted its energies to (and become known for) digital dissent and direct action around various “ops,” it has no definite trajectory. Sometimes coy and playful, sometimes macabre and sinister, often all at once, Anonymous is still animated by a collective will toward mischief—toward “lulz,” a plural bastardization of the portmanteau LOL (laugh out loud). Lulz represent an ethos as much as an objective.

The more I learn about Anonymous, especially in light of the offline, on-the-ground praxis of the Occupy movement, the more I’ve been wondering whether we’re seeing a glimpse of the future for all of us.

Here’s why. Over the past couple of years, as Anons became lulled—pun intended—into politics through their Scientology, Wikileaks, and Arab Spring operations, the lulz ethos has turned into a mode of movement-building. And it’s a movement that appears singularly scary to the powers that be, from globalized corporations to the governments of superpowers, despite (or perhaps because of) the Anons’ apparent disorganization and probably in excess of their actual capacity:

Political operations often come together haphazardly. Often lacking an overarching strategy, Anonymous operates tactically, along the lines proposed by the French Jesuit thinker Michel de Certeau. “Because it does not have a place, a tactic depends on time—it is always on the watch for opportunities that must be seized ‘on the wing,’” he writes in The Practice of Everyday Life (1980). “Whatever it wins, it does not keep. It must constantly manipulate events in order to turn them into ‘opportunities.’ The weak must continually turn to their own ends forces alien to them.” This approach could easily devolve into unfocused operations that dissipate the group’s collective strength. But acting “on the wing” leverages Anonymous’s fluid structure, giving Anons an advantage, however temporary, over traditional institutions—corporations, states, political parties—that function according to unified plans.

This bears striking resemblance to the activist framework of “diversity of tactics” that has prevailed in the Occupy movement, which emphasizes fostering dexterity and decentralization (as well as, relevantly, permissiveness toward “black blocs” of masked crusaders). But Anonymous’ allergy to unified planning isn’t limited to tactics; it extends to overall strategy and even ultimate purpose. Continues Coleman:

While Anonymous has not put forward any programmatic plan to topple institutions or change unjust laws, it has made evading them seem easy and desirable. To those donning the Guy Fawkes mask associated with Anonymous, this—and not the commercialized, “transparent” social networking of Facebook—is the promise of the Internet, and it entails trading individualism for collectivism.

In fact, Anonymous bespeaks a collective recognition that’s fueling uprisings from Lagos to Bucharest: the kinds of governments we have in place actually have little capacity for addressing the longings we have for freedom and collectivity in a globalizing, digital age. The reason both Anonymous and Occupy Wall Street don’t put forward “any programmatic plan” that existing institutions could follow is that there isn’t one. Or, rather, the movements themselves are their own programmatic plan, parallel institutions unto themselves.