Saints Culture – the glorification and veneration of extreme right terrorists – is a pivotal part of far-right digital culture in communities that support terrorism. The foremost adherents of Saint’s Culture are clustered around the so-called Terrorgram Collective, a loose consortium of Telegram channels whose aim is to promote accelerationist violence. Glorifying right-wing terrorists as “Saints” serves to transform their deeds from racist atrocities to quasi-religious acts. These acts are said to be righteously committed in “defense” of race and nation, which are perceived to be facing an existential threat from immigration, as reflected in the Great Replacement conspiracy.[1] In the pantheon of far-right heroes, these Saints are believed to have sacrificed their lives for their race and are thus elevated to the status of “martyrs.” The concept of martyrdom within Saints Culture is, however, somewhat elastic since it also encompasses perpetrators who, rather than being killed during the commission of their crimes, surrendered themselves to responding police and were subsequently jailed for life. In a further inversion of the concept of martyrdom, the suffering that being a martyr entails is sometimes not born by the killer himself but by his victims. Whilst this notion of martyrdom is clearly at odds with general understandings of the concept, what is indisputable is that these figures are revered across certain online communities. Their names, birthdays, and the dates of their killings are celebrated and commemorated online in numerous ways. The most notable is a “Saints Calendar” that bears more than a passing resemblance to online manifestations of serial killer lore. The propagation of Saints Culture serves as a tool to mobilize others within the movement to perpetrate their own acts of racist violence. Adherents believe that this violence will accelerate the demise of liberal democracy and that, from the carnage, a White ethnostate will arise. (…) Terrorgram channels deliberately target their consumers with a constant barrage of images and texts enjoining viewers to “Get the High Score” atop the “Leader Board” to encourage mass violence. Emulation becomes a process of competitive outbidding between individuals who have never met or perhaps even interacted with one another yet inhabit the same broad countercultural milieu online. In effect, individuals compete with one another to kill more and more people in hyper-mediatized ways such as livestreaming their attacks, videos of which are captured and recirculated to provide inspiration for further violence. Saints Culture thus works in tandem with the tendency towards gamifying violence.
via accresearch Terrorgram: Saints Culture By Graham Macklin What is Saints Culture?