“People take on these digital selves that are a more perfected version of themselves and where they can control things in a digital way that they can’t control in the analogue world,” he said of the gamers. So, he explained, Dave should back down and let Ajax take over. “I want Dave in Accounting to be Ajax in his life,” Bannon told The Atlantic’s Jennifer Senior. She observed, rightly, “That’s precisely what happened on January 6. The angry, howling hordes arrived as real-life avatars, cosplaying the role of rebels in face paint and fur. They stormed the Capitol while an enemy army tried to beat them away … They skipped a day of work. And then they expressed outrage—and utter incredulity—when they got carted away. The fantasy and the reality had become one and the same."

XREF: Connects to broader discourse on gamification of politics and how digital roleplay (gaming personas, troll identities) translates to offline mobilization and political violence. SEED: Potential essay angle: how 'digital perfected selves' in gaming communities prep participants to act them out physically, using Jan 6 as case study.

Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, loc. 192