EXTREMISMHollow‑Earth Myths and Nazi UFOs on TikTok Are Bringing White Supremacism into the Mainstream
Extremist content on social media does not exist in isolation. Instead, it lives in what researchers call “hybridized spaces”, where users move in and out of extremist discourse. In such spaces, borderline content, outright extremism, mundane trends and humor blend seamlessly – and participants may find their mainstream interests lead them to radical narratives.
Eighty-one years after Adolf Hitler died by his own hand in a Berlin bunker, a viral video on TikTok shows an AI-generated vision of the Nazi dictator standing in Antarctica, shoulders broad and face smiling, sipping a White Monster Energy drink while Men at Work’s iconic song Down Under plays.
It’s an absurd image, but one that makes sense in the context of the “Agartha” trend on TikTok, which is quietly bringing white supremacist narratives into the mainstream to be seen by millions of users.
The modern myth of Agartha, a supposed utopia hidden inside the hollow Earth, was constructed from older pieces by esoteric authors after the second world war. It blends “Aryan” white supremacist themes with ideas of an occult SS and Third Reich spaceships.
Literal belief in hollow-Earth myths or Nazi UFOs is not the point. Instead, it’s an aesthetic – one that can host both coded far-right messages and explicit ones, fused with pop-cultural references such as the White Monster Energy meme.
Mainstreaming Through Borderline Content
Agartha videos on social media are “awful but lawful”: the content is objectionable but legal. It allows extremists to embed their narratives into mainstream social media spaces, without triggering moderation or outright rejection by the audience. As a result, they can reach large, young audiences.
To understand how the underlying esoteric myths are used, we analyzed a network of more than 43,000 Agartha-related TikTok videos and closely studied selected examples. This analysis is part of an ongoing project led by researchers at Neu-Ulm University of Applied Sciences in Germany. The goal is to understand how extremists abuse platform features to carry radical narratives into the mainstream.
We identified four key mechanisms which far-right actors use to push radical narratives to unsuspecting audiences: aesthetic camouflage, dog-whistles and split-second glimpses, network building, and weaponized irony. Let’s unpack each of these terms.
Aesthetic Camouflage
Moderation systems on social media platforms aim to remove overt extremist propaganda. These systems work imperfectly, but overt propaganda is unlikely to reach mass audiences before being removed.
Instead, far-right actors often use generative AI to mask racial ideology behind seemingly benign tropes from science fiction and fantasy. This allows a “de-demonizing” of their ideas. Elf-like depictions of the “Aryan” inhabitants of Agartha, or footage of an underground utopia, make the idea of a white ethnostate seem palatable.
