When Fantasy Feels Too Familiar
What do a 2013 video game, a 1978 neo-Nazi novel, and a 21st-century far-right street gang have in common?
More than you might think.
At first glance, BioShock Infinite seems like a beautifully designed science-fiction shooter. But beneath the floating cityscapes and multidimensional travel lies a chilling reflection of real-world extremist ideologies. Its themes — white supremacy, theocracy, authoritarianism, and revolutionary collapse — read like a fictional mirror of the hateful world built in The Turner Diaries and echoed today in groups like the Proud Boys.
This post explores how BioShock Infinite functions not just as entertainment, but as a powerful critique of the same ideologies that have inspired white supremacist terror and anti-democratic violence in real life.
The Turner Diaries: The Blueprint of White Supremacist Revolution
Published in 1978 by William Luther Pierce under the pseudonym Andrew Macdonald, The Turner Diaries is a dystopian novel that glorifies a violent race war. The story follows Earl Turner, a white man who joins an underground organization committed to overthrowing the U.S. government — which is portrayed as being controlled by Jews and corrupted by multiculturalism.
The book calls for:
- The destruction of federal institutions
- The genocide of Jews and non-whites
- A return to white, patriarchal rule through terrorism
It’s been tied to real-life terrorism: the Oklahoma City bombing, the group “The Order,” and the ideologies of the Christchurch, El Paso, and Buffalo shooters.
It’s not just fiction — it’s a terrorist manual.
Proud Boys: Street-Level Supremacy
Fast forward to the 2010s, and we see the emergence of the Proud Boys, a far-right organization founded by Gavin McInnes. They claim to be “Western chauvinists” who oppose political correctness, feminism, and “the erosion of Western values.”
As documented in Andy Campbell’s We Are Proud Boys, their rhetoric and actions echo The Turner Diaries without directly citing it. Their ideology includes:
- Nostalgia for an idealized (and largely white) past
- Obsession with masculinity and dominance
- Open hostility toward minorities, liberals, and journalists
- Embrace of political violence (see: Jan. 6 insurrection)
Like The Turner Diaries, the Proud Boys reject democracy in favor of militant nationalism — wrapped in symbols of patriotism and masculinity.
Enter Columbia: The Fictional City That Feels Too Real
In BioShock Infinite, players explore Columbia, a floating American city built in the early 1900s by a charismatic religious leader named Zachary Comstock. He proclaims Columbia a shining beacon of American exceptionalism — a literal “city upon a cloud.”
But underneath its grandeur, Columbia is:
- A theocracy worshipping the Founding Fathers as near-gods
- A white supremacist regime enforcing strict racial segregation
- A nationalist cult with its own mythologized history
- A city built to preserve “Western civilization” at all costs
Sound familiar?
Columbia is what happens when the world of The Turner Diaries gets an early 20th-century paint job — and a more elegant PR campaign.
Religious Nationalism and the Comstock Cult
One of the most striking parallels between Columbia and The Turner Diaries world is the use of religion to justify oppression.
In The Turner Diaries, white revolutionaries are framed as moral saviors acting under divine will. In Columbia, Comstock acts as a prophet, twisting Christianity into a militant, racialized doctrine. His followers believe that non-whites, immigrants, and dissenters are threats to the purity of the nation and God’s will.
This also mirrors the Proud Boys’ use of Christian nationalism — the belief that the U.S. was founded as a Christian country and must return to those (white, patriarchal) values. Many members claim religious justification for violence, bigotry, and authoritarianism.
The Founders and the Proud Boys: Militant Masculinity
In BioShock Infinite, the Founders are Columbia’s elite enforcers — the ideological army of Comstock. They blend militarism, nationalism, and religion into a violently masculine identity.
The Proud Boys similarly construct masculinity around confrontation, aggression, and dominance. Their initiations involve being punched while shouting breakfast cereals, and their street violence — especially in Portland and D.C. — reflects a cult of strength and brotherhood.
Both groups glorify the man who fights back. Both reject modern liberalism, feminism, and multiculturalism as emasculating threats to civilization.
Accelerationism: Burn It Down to Build It Back
A central theme in The Turner Diaries is accelerationism — the belief that society must collapse through violence so it can be rebuilt on racial purity. Turner and his Organization commit terror to trigger civil war and collapse.
In BioShock Infinite, this concept is dramatized in the rise of the Vox Populi — a working-class revolutionary group led by Daisy Fitzroy. Initially sympathetic, the Vox become just as violent as the Founders. The message is clear: when ideology justifies violence, revolution and tyranny start to look the same.
Modern white supremacist groups — including some Proud Boys and Telegram-based extremists — openly embrace accelerationism. They cheer on chaos, hoping it leads to racial conflict and collapse.
It’s not just a theory — it’s a playbook. And The Turner Diaries wrote it.
Racial Mythmaking and Historical Revisionism
In Columbia, history is rewritten. George Washington is depicted as a demigod. The U.S. Civil War is reinterpreted as a tragic betrayal of white values. Immigrants and minorities are seen as corrupting influences.
This mirrors The Turner Diaries’ mythologizing of the American past — where racial homogeneity was the norm and anything different is seen as decline. It also reflects how groups like the Proud Boys twist history into a narrative of white victimhood and stolen legacy.
Whether it’s Confederate monuments, “replacement theory,” or slogans like “America First,” the goal is the same: to build a myth where white men are the eternal heroes and everyone else is the enemy.
Final Comparison: Fiction That Deconstructs, Fiction That Destroys
| Theme | The Turner Diaries | BioShock Infinite |
|---|---|---|
| White Supremacy | Promoted | Exposed and Critiqued |
| Religion | Used to justify genocide | Used to critique authoritarianism |
| Revolution | Framed as righteous genocide | Shown as morally ambiguous collapse |
| Masculinity | Tied to violence and domination | Critiqued through the player’s moral arc |
| Message | Embrace terror for racial salvation | Beware ideology that dehumanizes others |
BioShock Infinite was never just a shooter. It’s a philosophical warning disguised as a video game — a parable about how beautiful rhetoric and patriotic myth can hide genocide, how the heroes of history can become tyrants, and how fanaticism always ends in ruin.
While The Turner Diaries and Proud Boys-style extremism seek to build a society on purity, violence, and fear, BioShock Infinite invites players to question those very myths — and the real-world consequences when people believe them.
Fiction has power. It can radicalize. Or it can reveal. The Turner Diaries chose the former. BioShock Infinite chose the latter.
The rest is up to us.
Further Reading:
- The Turner Diaries by Andrew Macdonald (Warning: extremist content)
- We Are Proud Boys by Andy B. Campbell
- BioShock Infinite, developed by Irrational Games (2013)
- SPLC and ADL reports on white supremacist accelerationism
- Academic work on religion, masculinity, and American nationalism in media