Alone and online: One teenager's solitary descent into extremism

Confined to his bedroom, the teenager from Oldham, Greater Manchester, found solace in the company of YouTube videos and social media personalities.

Speaking with LBC, Calum has revealed how being alone and online during this time drew him towards dangerous Far-Right ideas about Islam, immigration and feminism.

He has shared details of how he fell for polarising figures such as Andrew Tate, Donald Trump and Tommy Robinson - but also how he eventually managed to think his way out of it.

Calum’s journey down the extremist pipeline mirrors growing concerns about how online echo chambers - amplified by social media algorithms - have the power to radicalise young men through narratives of “free speech,” masculinity, and cultural decline.

For Calum, the first Covid lockdown compounded this sense of isolation and loneliness.

“I was stuck at home, no friends, just online all the time,” he said, adding that the algorithms of social media fed these narratives straight back to him, making it worse.

'Forbidden quality'

“I was isolated and had no one to talk to,” he said. “When you don’t hear any different points of view, it’s easy to go down that rabbit hole.”

“You start hearing people like Tommy Robinson saying things you feel you’re ‘not allowed to talk about.’

"It felt like there was this secret truth no one wanted to admit.”

He explained that the “forbidden” quality was part of the appeal and a huge part of what lured him in.

Discussions about tricky topics like Islam, immigration, and gender - framed by influencers as topics “suppressed by political correctness” - made him feel like he was part of an exclusive club that “saw through the lies.”

“They’d say it’s just free speech but really, it was just excusing racism.”

He said those spaces also offered him a sense of identity and purpose he hadn’t found elsewhere.

“There was this idea that masculinity had been destroyed, that white working-class men were now the oppressed group,” he explained.

'Easy to laugh at now'

He believes this idea had left men feeling insecure and not knowing their place in society. When it came to women’s rights, Calum was led to believe girls had it “easy” and viewed feminists as "man-haters".

He thought feminism was ”corrupting” young women away from family values.

“It’s easy to laugh at now but as a deeply insecure 14-year-old boy who’d never had a girlfriend and never got any attention it was all super easy to believe.”

He went on: “Especially if you don’t have anyone around to discuss and question all of these things with”.

Calum also said the Far Right offered him a sense of community that he felt he needed as he felt “ostracised” for his views.

When the schools reopened, Calum said some of his views were challenged by his classmates. “They called me racist,” he admitted.

“But that just made me defensive. Insulting someone doesn’t change their mind.”

His school intervened after he posted a video in support of Andrew Tate back in 2022.

However, he said this backfired and only reinforced his beliefs that everyone else was “brainwashed”.

“It confirmed everything I thought. The message was always, ‘You’re not allowed to talk about this.’”

Turning point

But, his mind slowly began to open when he reached sixth form and began to speak to people from different backgrounds. Meeting LGBTQ+ people and students from different ethnic minority communities helped him see the flaws in his own thinking.

“I realised we had more in common than I thought,” he said.

He said the penny dropped when he realised it had been the women in his life who supported him at some of his darkest moments.

“It was the ‘man-haters’ who’d been there to support and guide me,” Calum explained.

He also said learning alongside Muslim students challenged his prejudice and helped him see through the lies.

“I was told Muslims were destroying the country, but I got on with them in my classes.”

Today, he looks back of his past words with regret.

“I never would’ve even thought of saying those things now.”

'Bigoted'

He also explained that watching outspoken figures like Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson offering “blind” support for Israel while witnessing intense suffering in Palestine forced him to rethink his stance.

Highlighting "bigoted" views against Palestinians, he explained that much of the rhetoric is "because they are Muslims," he said.

Calum grew up in Oldham, a post-industrial town hit hard by unemployment and lack of job opportunities.

He said he understands now how this kind of context has made some people in his community receptive to populist messages.

“The far right talks about speaking up for the ordinary Brit,” he says.

“But that’s because Labour and the Conservatives both abandoned working-class people.

"When politicians don’t listen, people turn to whoever says it ‘as it is’ - even if it’s toxic.”

Calum says now he’s focused on rebuilding real connections - and helping others avoid the path he took.

“I started thinking with my heart rather than my prejudices. I feel so much freer now.”

He said he used this newfound world view to dissect the Red Pill and anti-Islam talking points he’d fallen for.

Calum also said witnessing personal examples to counter these narratives also massively contributed to crawling back out of the rabbit hole.

“You don’t change your mind overnight,” he admitted.

“You have to feel part of something better.”

Calum said he finds the rise of the Far Right in the UK “really worrying” and urged people who may be falling for these kinds of narratives like he did to question them.

“I want young men in particular my age to do the same.

“These people like Trump, Farage, Andrew Tate, Tommy Robinson. None of them stand for you. They want to enrich themselves.

"They want you to be angry all the time on purpose because they’d be absolutely nowhere without it.”

'Double-edged'

Speaking with LBC, Roger Griffin, one of the world's leading experts on the socio-historical and ideological dynamics of fascism, said that radicalisation can be "reversible and is not pre-determined".

He said it is possible to grow out of it through combatting loneliness, connection and real friendship.

But, he admitted that this sense of community can be "double-edged".

"The need to belong is deeply ambivalent, creating an inclusive sense of community, idealism, and tolerance in somecircumstances, while generating exclusion, fanaticism and violence inothers", as stated in Longing to Belong: Cultivating transcultural humanism inModern Britain as a Source of identity.

A spokesperson for Ofcom said: “Our online safety rules require tech firms to tackle illegal criminal content and prevent children from seeing the most harmful types of content online. 

“We’re closely monitoring platforms to ensure they’re prioritising safety and complying with the rules. Where they fall short and children are put at risk, we will not hesitate to act.”

LBC approached Nigel Farage MP for comment.