The trend has reached New Zealand:

America has long been known for its cultural exports of Hollywood movies and rock ‘n’ roll and the all-American cool that went with them. But as the whole world seems to lurch towards the abyss, our cultural products seem to be changing. Sure, we’re still cranking out 14 Marvel blockbusters a year. But it increasingly appears we are creating and spreading the aesthetics of modern fascism via an intricate web of siloed online communities. Since Gamergate, toxic ideas have popped into the Internet ether in the guise of ironic memes or nihilistic trolling and linger there until they become real in the minds of far too many. It also seems we’re spreading our national disease: the mass murder of innocents at the point of a gun.

Authorities in New Zealand say a man in his late 20s walked into two mosques in the town of Christchurch on Friday and started firing. He killed 49 people—41 at the al Noor mosque across from the sprawling Hagley Park, and 7 more at the Linwood mosque. There were more murders in New Zealand on Friday than there were nationwide in all of 2017, and gun homicides are normally in the single digits annually.

Why do young (and generally also white and Christian) men in the United States continue to do this, and why is it spreading world wide?