Pronoid Pseudocommunities: The Hidden Online Risk for K–12 Safety

Most of us are familiar with paranoia , the belief that the world is conspiring against you. But in my work in school safety and threat assessment, I’ve been paying closer attention to its opposite: pronoia.

Pronoia is the belief that the world is secretly conspiring for you, that you are chosen, destined, or part of a benevolent mission. When this optimism is paired with what some call a pseudocommunity, a group that appears harmonious and supportive on the surface, but suppresses real conflict or dissent, it can create something dangerous: a pronoid pseudo-community.

And in today’s digital environment, especially in the gaming world and online forums, our students are encountering these groups every day.

When Online Groups Become Cult-Like

The FBI has warned that the dominance of online life has led to the emergence of “a pronoid pseudocommunity of people who are fascinated with targeted violence incidents or even endorse them” (Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI], 2017, p. 50).

The attraction is powerful: online peers provide the acceptance and encouragement that real-world relationships may withhold. This can foster arrogance (“I’m destined to act”), entitlement (“I have the right to act”), and ultimately justification for violence.

We saw this dynamic in the 2019 Christchurch attack, where the perpetrator live-streamed his massacre to resemble a first-person shooter “Let’s Play” video. Researchers note that this wasn’t just violence, it was performance for an online audience (Allwinn & Böckler, 2021).

Similarly, the rise of “Columbiner” fan groups shows how school shooters inspire a subculture that blends grievance with belonging. These are classic pseudocommunities: false harmony masking a dangerous undercurrent.

The “Church of Columbine” as Identity Based Contagion

At the 2025 ATAP Threat Management Conference in California, psychologists Mariya Dvoskina, PsyD, CTM and Gabriel Maletta, PsyD presented on what they call the “Church of Columbine.” Their research shows how Columbine has evolved beyond simple imitation into a cultural identity and contagion.

For some youth and young adults, Columbine has become more than a reference point, it is a shared identity that provides meaning, belonging, and purpose. Online forums and communities reinforce this identity by framing Columbine perpetrators as martyrs or cultural icons.

This phenomenon is strikingly similar to the concept of a pronoid pseudocommunity:

• Pronoia: Members view themselves as “chosen” or destined to carry on Columbine’s legacy.
• Pseudocommunity: These groups appear supportive but suppress dissent, creating false harmony and reinforcing grievance.

The Church of Columbine highlights how one event has been mythologized into a shared narrative, fostering radicalization among vulnerable youth. For school threat assessment teams, this means fascination with Columbine should be understood not only as fixation, but as potential identity adoption, an accelerant along the pathway to violence.

Why Students Are Vulnerable

Today’s students have 24/7 access to virtual ecosystems where they can experiment with identity, join interest groups, and bond with strangers around the world. But some of these spaces:

• Normalize grievance as a badge of honor.
• Glorify past attackers as martyrs.
• Encourage “us vs. them” thinking, framed in destiny or fate.
• Host high volumes of hate speech, up to 50% of users in gaming communities report exposure (GAO, 2024).

That’s the danger: these are not overtly hostile hate groups at first glance. They are pronoid pseudocommunities, online collectives that appear positive but are reinforcing pathways to violence.

As the GAO emphasizes, exposure to online hate and extremist content has been linked to several high-profile mass attacks, showing how these digital echo chambers can shape real world violence (GAO, 2024).

Implications for Threat Assessment Teams

Both the FBI and leading threat assessment researchers agree: social media review is indispensable.

• It can reveal grievances, plans, hobbies, affiliations, and travel.
• It may show leakage, indirect warnings, posts, likes, videos, or manifestos.
• It provides context for whether a student is embedded in a validating pseudocommunity that reinforces their grievance.

The FBI emphasizes that “social media offers an often unparalleled view into the thoughts, feelings, plans, and intentions of a person of concern. Social media review should begin as soon as a case is opened, and continue until concerns are abated” (Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI], 2017, p. 50).

As Allwinn & Böckler (2021) add, online groups often avoid formal “membership.” Instead, they function through recurring interactions, likes, shares, memes, inside jokes, that build invisible webs of belonging. For practitioners, this means we can’t just ask whether a student is in a “group.” We must look for patterns of validation and interaction that create a false sense of community.

Final Thought

Online extremism and the rise of pronoid pseudocommunities remind us that threat assessment is not just about spotting warning behaviors in isolation, but about understanding the context in which those behaviors grow. For today’s students, that context often includes online worlds where validation is cheap, grievances are amplified, and violence is reframed as destiny.

As professionals, educators, and community leaders, we cannot underestimate the pull of these spaces. Nor can we afford to dismiss them as “just online” or “kids being kids.” The internet has blurred the line between fantasy and reality, performance and planning. Our vigilance, and our willingness to engage students where they are, will be the difference between prevention and tragedy.

Closing

At the end of the day, the work of school safety and threat assessment professionals is not only to manage threats but to build resilient, authentic communities that make pronoid pseudocommunities unnecessary. When we provide students with real belonging, real support, and real accountability, we reduce the allure of false harmony online.

The task before us is urgent, but it is also hopeful. By recognizing the dangers and addressing them head-on, we light the candle, and in doing so, we make the darkness less overwhelming for the students and communities we serve.

References

Allwinn, M., & Böckler, N. (2021). Crawling in the dark—Perspectives on threat assessment in the virtual sphere. In J. R. Meloy & J. Hoffmann (Eds.), International Handbook of Threat Assessment (2nd ed., pp. 285–302). Oxford University Press.

Dvoskina, M., & Maletta, G. (2025, August). The Church of Columbine: Beyond Identification. Presentation at the Association of Threat Assessment Professionals (ATAP) Threat Management Conference, Anaheim, CA.

Federal Bureau of Investigation. (2017). Making prevention a reality: Identifying, assessing, and managing the threat of targeted attacks. U.S. Department of Justice.https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/making-prevention-a-reality.pdf/view

GAO. (2024, February). Online extremism is a growing problem, but what’s being done about it? U.S. Government Accountability Office. Retrieved from https://www.gao.gov/blog/online-extremism-growing-problem-whats-being-done-about-it

Weimann, G. (2015). Terrorism in cyberspace: The next generation. Columbia University Press.

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