A great deal of attention in the U.S. has understandably been paid to how ISIS promotes its ideology, with a focus on ISIS’ social media prowess and its ability to reach a potentially limitless supply of lone wolf actors. Yet the medium is less important than the message, and specifically, the “stickiness” of the message. The term “stickiness,” as applied to ideas, was popularized by Malcolm Gladwell in The Tipping Point, in which the ideas that “stick” to people are the most successful. ISIS’ message is dangerous because it is extremely sticky, but for a counterintuitive reason. ISIS rejects almost every other group and belief system, but its message does the exact opposite: it offers something for everyone. The universality of the message makes the group extremely dangerous; it is able to draw in people from across the spectrum of geography, education, nationality, and personality.
For many, the exclusivity of any given group is what makes it desirable, the reasoning being that the harder it is to gain entry, the better the group must be. Candidates for acceptance must know the minutiae of the group’s history, philosophy, goals, and—above all—its rules. It also doesn't hurt to know someone on the inside—this applies to terrorist organizations as well. But exclusivity does not really apply to ISIS when it comes to its ability to inspire domestic terror attacks. Most often, the group does not know the names of the people who aim to kill in its name, nor does it care about the individual motivations of nameless actors; ISIS just wants claim for the action and the regenerative power of publicity.
Behind all of the slick visuals and cinematic sophistication of ISIS propaganda, exhorting lone wolf attacks is ISIS’s stickiest idea: That whatever your grievance—no matter what it is—killing for ISIS will meet your need:
- Feeling like an outcast? ISIS will accept you.
- Feeling persecuted? ISIS will empower you.
- Want to be loved? ISIS will love you.
- Want to be famous? ISIS will guarantee you a spotlight and your own Wikipedia page.
- Want your life to mean something? Kill for ISIS.
- Want to live forever? Die for ISIS.
To us, this sounds laughably simplistic and childish. Yet ISIS isn’t talking to us. It’s talking to the people who feel that no one ever truly talks to them—the disaffected, the disillusioned, the discontented, the demented, and the dangerous.
The strange reality of ISIS’ appeal to domestic lone wolves is that ISIS has made “off-the-rack” messaging feel like a bespoke suit to each person who encounters ISIS’ propaganda. The crowdsourced nature of its messaging ensures that whatever a vulnerable person is looking for—a sense of belonging, video game-style violence, spiritual salvation—he or she will be able to find it.
This makes detecting potential lone wolves much harder for authorities. The usual suspects—known violent religious radicals and networks—are still in play, but now added to the mix is an unknowable number of people to whom, for countless reasons, the ISIS message might stick. These people don’t require a long path to radicalization—the traditional path that authorities depend on to detect, monitor, and disrupt would-be lone wolves. The cyber-speed of radicalization stems not so much from the speed of the message but from the fact that the target audience is already somewhat unstable. The relentless barrage of ISIS messaging is just the shove some people need to tip over into violent action. The stickiness of the message is matched by its ubiquity, presenting authorities with a serious and likely long-term challenge.
