The Internet and digital media have become social spaces for exchange and interaction among actors and groups with significant impact on the contemporary world. Since the beginning of the 2010s, social scientists have identified roots of a toxic technoculture based on prejudice, reactionary views, and intolerance within gamer subculture. This, combined with other factors, has led to the development of anti-video game activism and a stigmatized public opinion about electronic games, which are seen as potential inducers of violent and antisocial behavior. As a result, the gamer community has distanced itself from traditional social spaces and congregated first on chans and image boards, and later, with the advancement of big tech, in virtual spaces through applications that allow the prefiguration of alternative societies. The dichotomy between public opinion and gamer identity has created a context of polarization and aversion, with the latter contributing to the consolidation of anti-system activism.

Especially after the election of far-right leaders around the globe, gamer communities have been investigated as chambers for the reproduction of extremist ideologies. In this context, the present research aims to understand the process of political mobilization among young people in digital spaces populated by gamer subcultures, in order to answer which worldviews, repertoires, and political practices permeate these communities on Discord in Brazil. Through a longitudinal ethnographic approach, the collected data spans a period of nearly 3 years (2020-2023) within the three largest organized public groups on the aforementioned application.

Empirical analysis confirms that the gamer community and subculture are diverse and plural, although a state of hegemony prevails in discourses and positions of power. This leads to the production and circulation of extremist and intolerant content, which is masked through memetic techniques to appear humorous and be more accepted by members. Simultaneously, insiders develop their own symbols and communicative expressions, whose meaning is not intelligible to non-initiates. Drawing on the concept of encrypted activism, the research demonstrates the existence of communication flows for the transmission of reactionary and intolerant syntagms, which are masked to be read and discovered only by those familiar with the way. Through Discord, materials produced by YouTubers, websites, blogs, and content creators (influencers) circulate, working to spread far-right ideologies among young video game players in the Brazil.