If you’ve spent the last twenty years in a coma and have just stumbled onto the internet and don’t know your Tumblrs from your Tinders, don’t worry! I’m here to give you a helping hand.

The internet has morphed from its inception as a nerd’s pipe dream into a centre point for angry typed shouting. You’ll notice that large communities of people exist who engage in constant spats with other groups. You’ll notice these communities, while all sharing the same unpleasantness, same complete conviction they are totally correct in their world views, all have different mythologies.

Some groups go on and on about how Weed cures every disease known to man, some go on about how we’re all definitely part of an intelligent designers design, and others are convinced that all society is persecuting any women who dares get her boob out in public to feed a suckling infant.

You might wonder why people spend their free time being part of the bizarre culture of perpetuation of misinformation and bias the internet has produced, but there are many benefits to being part of an Internet Clan mythology that are worth considering.

1. You get to be convinced you are absolutely correct all the time.
2. You get to interact with lots of other people who all have exactly the same views as you.
3. You get to ostracise anyone in your group who shows dissension.
4. You get to spam your newsfeed constantly with biased articles and selective research and bore everyone you know to death.
5. You get to have a cool little lexicon of terms. Twitter hashtag banners for you and your followers to rally under, and code words with which to instantly dismiss any dialogue contrary to your world views.
6. It’s an incredibly easy way to give yourself an identity. Far easier than thorough self-examination, soul-searching and constant questioning of one’s views and beliefs.

Of course, there are many different Internet Clan Mythologies to choose from, and I can hardly cover each and every one in one article. However, I felt that it would be wise to cover some of the conspicuous in recent years, just so we can grasp what it means to be in with one of these in-crowds, and help you decide which is best for you!

1. INCEL (Or, why it’s not my fault I’m single!)

Are you got not lucky with the girls? Do you think that maybe instead of you doing it all wrong it’s that there’s a global conspiracy enacted by women in order that only alpha male frat boys get laid while dweeps like you are left celibate? Do you consider having sex with a woman your personal human right? Are you a potential mass murderer? Then the internet mythology clan Incel is for you!

Being a member of Incel has many benefits. While sex obviously isn’t one of them, there are certainly compensations. For starters you can wholeheartedly believe the party manifesto that women are all evil.

What is the bold evidence on which Incel builds its manifesto? Um… Anecdote, mainly. Anecdote is a vital source for all internet mythologies, regardless of what those logical scientific people say about anecdotal evidence being inherently flawed. Anecdote is truly the bedrock on which Incel is laid. Sorry, not ‘laid’. Poor choice of words.

2. AN ANTI-VACCINATION GROUP (Or, trying to kill children as a pastime!)

Doctors are all evil, aren’t they? Really? I was just saying that as a joke. But if you think that Medical professionals are all lying conning merciless monsters who are trying to trick you into harming your children then an Anti-Vaccination Internet Mythology Clan is for you!

Apparently Vaccines, something invented for the sole purpose of being very good for you, are actually very bad bad bad bad bad bad bahbahdadaad for you! Who’d have known? Apparently those doctors and humanitarians and Jonas Salk were all peddling a harmful and elaborate con! Vaccines stopping potentially fatal viruses? What a thought!

As a member of an anti-Vaccine mythology clan, it is your duty to convince others to join you in not vaccinating your children and ensuring a new outbreak of virus that should have been eliminated 50 years ago.

Wait, your expected to expose children to Polio, and Rubella, and all those other horrible infections? Isn’t there like, lots of proper scientific evidence that says that’s a really bad idea? Well don’t worry about that, there’s lots of anecdotal evidence, research sponsored by companies trying to sell alternatives for Vaccines, and biased reporting that’s says otherwise. I mean, would you believe it, its actually faulty vaccines, not anti-vaccination panic that caused all those virus outbreaks which were caused by anti-vaccination panic.

Oh yeah. Because Vaccines are government funded, Conspiracy theorists generally don’t like them, because if you’re a conspiracy theorist your natural train of logic is; the government wants it to happen, so Aliens must want it to happen, and therefore its BAD. So if you join an anti-vaccine mythology Clan be prepared to have a lot of discussion about chemtrails…

3. GAMERGATE (Or, being a really Loathsome Human Being!)

Are you a misogynist who likes to hide behind the shallow façade of an ethics campaign that doesn’t actually make any sense? Do you like causing irreversible traumatic scars in an entire community that will never be healed? Do you like making an identity completely unfashionable? Do you like making women fear for their lives and safety? Then you’re a terrible person! But also you should consider joining the Internet Clan Mythology Gamergate!

Gamergate is a mythology that has a bit of an identity crisis. It started when the ex-boyfriend of a feminist independent Games designer made a ranty jilted blog post and misogynists jumped on this and tried to get the mainstream gaming media to report it as actual news. When most main outlets didn’t as doing so would have violated journalistic standards, the misogynists went skitz and started a systematic attack on any female developer or voice they felt to be a threat to their beloved sexist white-male targeted videogames.

You’re job as a Gamergate rep will be to [CENSORED]. But in-between episodes of [CENSORED] will also be expected to virulently state that Gamergate is about ethics! Not sexism! Despite all evidence to the contrary.

How is a movement that has forced developers to leave their homes and threatened to enact acts of terrorism about ethics? Well, you see, videogame developers and developers should never be friends. Ever. Ideally they should never have even met each other. Despite the fact that in every other medium such as film, music, literature, critics and developers, by nature of both being interested in their medium and wanting to learn about it, go through the same educational channels and usually act to support each other’s work.

But actually understanding how the world really works isn’t something you expected to do as a Gamergate supporter. In fact, understanding how the world actually works isn’t something you’re meant to do as a member of any Internet Clan Mythology. Just post links to tenuous sites and congratulate each other on how great you all are and you’re all good.

Additional Points

You must never even consider you might be wrong. Ever. If you are wrong, then that means the Internet Mythology Clan you joined is wrong. And that means you’ve been duped! God Forbid that!

Also, never question your clan’s beliefs. If you do you will be ostracised and added to your group’s block list before you can even type #maybeitsworthconsidering.

Hopefully these tips have been helpful in deciding which Internet Mythological Clan to blindly pledge allegiance to. Please feel free to comment in the section below, follow me on Twitter, and add me to your block list.