"Boogaloo" is a longstanding meme that refers to a possible upcoming civil war, that the media has recently misconstrued into a movement trying to cause a civil war.
I got about 1/5th through before I couldn't help but wonder if this was a satire site. He's uncomfortable with decades-old common internet acronyms, and unable to recognize a joke, taking several used in the article completely seriously.
One of the comments there puts it better than I can:
> Honestly, most of it is genuinely trolling. I don’t go on it anymore (used to more often), but really the whole thing is a meme. Sure, a few people take it seriously, but I have no doubt it is no statistically different than any other group that has a subculture.
> 4chans entire subculture exists to start trends, meme, and get a reaction. The boogaloo movement was always a meme and it is only now being legitimized because of mainstream news coverage. Now, people who aren’t about of the Chan subculture see it and start to believe in it legitimately.. when that never was the case to begin with.
> They did this with the “OK” symbol, Waterproof Iphones, TayTweets, and most recently Boogaloo.
> Now they are doing it with #goBaldForBLM (or at least trying to).
> Just kind of sad to see a credible investigative journalism site constantly spending time to focus on 4chan.. when it’s trolls.. and the only people who take it seriously are the ones who read about it through the lens of an article.
It's the media not understanding the internet and creating their own boogeyman.
Err.. I hate to break it to you, but the Chan trolling culture has been used a a deliberate way of pushing extreme views into the mainstream for a long time now.
Look no further than Pizzagate and now QAnon. Boogaloo may have started out like that but people quickly made it a real thing long before mainstream media jumped on board.
The whole "oh it's only trolling, can't you take a joke" is just a front used for people to shield their true beliefs behind.
Here's a criminal charge[1] against one Boogaloo person. I'd note this sentence: "During the rally LYNAM stated their group was not for joking around"
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/boogaloo