This author clearly doesn't understand what it is to do something for the lulz. FWIW, it's not a masculine v. feminine thing, or a white vs. nonwhite thing--it's the same urge that helps children across the globe torture animals and set things on fire out of boredom. That's perhaps one of the few truly universal human quirks.

Throughout the article, the author really really wants to present the 'channers, the alt-right, and white supremacists as being the same groups, interchangeable in motive and person. Further, the author invokes a lot of Western (like, cowboy-western) imagery with references to the Alamo, Lone Ranger, and other shibboleths in a pretty naked attempt to go painting the folks as searching for lost masculinity. Finally, in a cheap shot, she then basically calls them cowards for not dying for their memes while still lamenting that their candidate (Trump) won.

It sure reads nicely, but it misses--in my opinion--a big part of the context these actions are taking place in.

These folks are reacting to a world where truth is really just another convenience to use or alter as a selling point, where systemic issues with politics and corruption are ignored beyond being used to build peoples' careers as progressives, where racism is suddenly de jure no longer an issue but de facto pretty obviously used to prevent critical speech, and where sexism and misogyny have been so widely and indiscriminately accused that they no longer have real and common meaning.

So, in the deepest throes of nihilism (which the author should've explored further instead of deciding to play the "mean young white male" card) this culture has evolved.