Teachers are afraid students are being "Red-Pilled"

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Often, it’s hard for teachers to tell whether a student is being truly red-pilled in the sense that they’re being radicalized online, or whether they’re parroting views that they’ve grown up with in their conservative households. Tessa, a 29-year-old in the Midwest who teaches 14- to 18-year-olds at a private school for students with learning impairments, says that while many of her students “simply take on the talking points and politics of their conservative parents,” this can make them especially ripe targets for full-blown radicalization and infatuation with far-right figures. “A few started listening to Joe Rogan’s podcast, which led to them reading Jordan Peterson’s books,” she says. “I think that Joe Rogan’s ideology is the biggest threat to critical thinking in the last decade.”

There are some obvious warning signs that a student is being red-pilled, though, like when they have a sudden and noticeable rightward shift in their views; when they specifically mention figures like Ben Shapiro and Peterson, who Olivia says her student “loved”; and when they use language that makes the online influence obvious, like “Chad” and “cuck.”

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It can also be devastating for teachers to realize that, despite their best efforts, some of their students might end up holding hateful beliefs long term, and many of them take it personally. “My biggest worry is that they’ll be stuck in their thinking forever, and that they’ll join the Proud Boys or something,” Tessa says. “I feel like I should be able to do a better job at teaching critical-thinking skills and they should have enough trust in me to believe that I’m telling them the truth.”

“Honestly,” she adds, “it makes me feel like I’ve failed at my job.”

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