«PMC Ryodan» - a harmless game or a dangerous threat?

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I purposely did not publish my commentary at once, in order not to participate in the information wave dispersed by the media on this subject, which, unfortunately, as it often happens, has had an extremely negative effect on the situation.

My personal opinion: in today's world, where information is available to most of the world's population and spreads at super-high speeds, the media should more carefully check the veracity of the obtained facts, as well as the form in which they are presented in publications. If it is not done, then consequences of such ill-considered actions can lead to grave consequences, and many innocent people cost lives and health. Such a concept as «Information terrorism» is already very active in people's daily lives, and in the near future, the activity of this phenomenon will only increase, as well as the number of its victims. 

Now to the point.  At the end of February 2023 in Russia several cases of mass fights (between 5 and 15 people) were recorded, the incidents took place primarily in shopping and entertainment centers in large cities, the participants were teenagers (14-17 years old), representatives of various youth subcultures. In the media this event became known as «PMC Ryodan».

Quite interesting, non-standard composition of the participants in this confrontation. The parties to the conflict were: on the one hand, members of the Fan Clubs of Japanese animation - Anime.  Their opponents were members of youth groups (gangs) of aggressive (mostly soccer hooligans) and overtly criminal nature.

 Brief background information:

«PMC Ryodan» is one of the fairly new trends among the community of anime fans in Russia. It has a similar name to the criminal group from the manga and anime «Hunter x Hunter» - Genie Ryodan (literally «Ghost Group»). According to the story, this community consists of robbers and murderers with superpowers. The distinctive feature of Genay Redan is the spider symbol. Each member of the gang has a tattoo with its image and an ordinal number.

Members of the Redan movement tend to wear black sweatshirts or T-shirts and black and white and gray plaid pants, or just plain black. An important distinguishing element of their clothes is that they necessarily have a spider drawn on them. Given the popularity of the anime «Hunter x Hunter» and the characters «Geno Ryodan» many factories produce a large line of various themed clothing, which are sold in specialized stores or on Marketplace. Most often these are sweatshirts with the image of a spider and the number four. They are very popular with anime fans. Also members of this movement wear long black or dyed hair. There are no other peculiarities in the appearance of the representatives of the «PMC Ryodan».

 The starting point should be considered February 19, when the first clash between two groups of teenagers occurred in one of Moscow's shopping malls. The incident was filmed on a cell phone by one of the eyewitnesses, after which the footage was posted on the Internet, where it began to spread with viral speed on social networks, blogs and messengers. The catalyst for the situation was the media, which did not understand the circumstances of the incident and began to publish hundreds and thousands of messages, most of which were less than half true. The topic instantly entered the news headlines of leading news agencies and achieved an «Information bomb» effect, the consequences of such an «explosion» were immediate. Thousands of teenagers across the country began to create dozens and hundreds of thematic communities, groups and channels «PMC Ryodan», in social networks, video services and messengers. The symbol of their subculture - a spider with the number 4 - became the most recognizable in the network in a few days, the number of teenagers who affiliate themselves with a particular subculture grew tenfold. Then the situation became more complicated, every day in different cities, now not only big cities, but even in provincial ones, mass fights between groups of teenagers began. Within just 2-3 days, the phenomenon became mass-scale, and within a week, it had spread to neighboring countries as well. Information about gatherings and skirmishes between youth groups begins to arrive from Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan, with some episodes also reported in Latvia and Estonia.

We must pay tribute to the leadership of the law enforcement agencies, who on this occasion were able to correctly assess the likely development of this situation, and through rapid, albeit in some cases quite harsh measures, were able to localize the situation and bring it under control. In this case, I consider the harshness of the measures to be fully justified, because thanks to these measures, more dangerous consequences were avoided.

When analyzing the publications in the communities of the participants of this conflict in social networks and messengers, it was found that several days after the start of the conflict, the administrators of Internet resources appeared appeals to the participants to hold gatherings in shopping and entertainment centers and other public places. It was explained by preventive security measures in case of aggression by representatives of the opponents, and it was stated that the purpose of the assembly was exclusively peaceful, and it is important that the time and place of such assemblies were announced in advance and in the public domain.

In my opinion, such actions deliberately provoked an escalation of the conflict.  The calculation was to increase the activity and aggression of the parties, to move the conflict to the next stage, clashes with the use of weapons, and thus with more serious consequences. It is important to understand that the previous fights between teenagers, even though they were mass fights, but there were practically no serious victims, everything was limited to abrasions, bruises and other minor injuries. However, as I have already said, thanks to the prompt action of the police, who also monitored the situation by analyzing the activity of «PMC Ryodan» and their opponents on the Internet, most of the clashes were prevented and it was possible to avoid the conflict turning into a more dangerous, bloody level.

I will not speculate about the causes of this conflict, I will only say that the various subcultures in the teenage environment were, are and will always be, as well as conflicts between their representatives. This is a feature of their psychological and physiological development, growing up, the formation of personality and character formation. It is useless to struggle against this phenomenon (as some politicians and public figures suggest), it will only cause the opposite reaction. I suggest looking at the situation from another angle, not moral or educational, but as a serious, forward-looking threat to public and national security.

If we analyze the development of events, the situation is much more complicated and dangerous than it seems at first sight, especially in the near term. Why?

1. The active side of this conflict was the teenage subculture, which has existed for more than 20 years, and its representatives have never shown aggression, although they were constantly harassed by other youth groups. The animation fans of the anime genre are a community built on pacifist ideas and principles, but in this case we can see how quickly the basic foundations of their ideology have been replaced, from a passive-peaceful to an active-aggressive one. Without any resistance from within the community itself, tens of thousands of adolescents from various cities and countries changed their moral and ethical guidelines in a matter of hours.

2. The source of the information wave, which within a few days had taken the conflict first to the federal, and then to the international level, was a video of a trivial fight between two groups of teenagers in a mall café. There was nothing special in the brawl (the clip is available in the network, everyone can see it), around 10 people were not involved, they were actively separated, no weapons were used, no one was seriously injured. Similar skirmishes between teenagers happen in dozens and hundreds every year, and more mass and more violent ones, including with the use of weapons and a large number of victims. There are thousands of similar videos shot over the past 10 years in different countries on the Internet. However, not one of them has provoked such a reaction. 

3. the immediate reaction of the media space. Besides official media, during a day there were created and launched dozens of communities and channels in social networks and messengers, with tens of thousands of subscribers. At the same time, information in these resources disseminated monotonous in its content and was quickly copied from large communities to smaller ones. As a result, informational coverage of the target audience, nationwide, occurred within hours. 

All of the above circumstances, and not only them, indicate directly that this situation was not spontaneous. All the events that took place were clearly centrally controlled and developed according to a certain plan.

I have no direct evidence, and I have no desire to consider conspiracy theories. Therefore, I will not speculate about who organized it and for what purpose. I have other tasks:

 - To consider a hypothetical scenario of how the situation could have developed further if law enforcement had not intervened;

- Who and how could take advantage of such situations in the future;

- what conclusions should be drawn by law enforcement and what measures should be developed and implemented to prevent and combat similar situations in the future.

As mentioned above, the police intervened at precisely the moment when the situation could have escalated to the next, more dangerous stage. The escalation of the conflict was facilitated by appeals to the supporters of «PMC Ryodan» to gather in public places, where they were to take self-defense means, such as pepper gas or stun guns. The organizers' calculation is clear, information about the place and time of assembly of the Ryoden supporters was published in the public domain, it means that their opponents from the hostile youth groups, who would also show up at the place of assembly, but armed with more serious weapons, would also have had it. Clashes would have ensued between the hostile groups of teens, and given the fact that they had guns, there would have been more casualties, including those who were seriously injured and maimed. I would add that I wouldn't rule out the possibility of fatalities.

What followed would have been a chain reaction, actively encouraged by media coverage. Most crimes would move from the streets and shopping malls to schools and other institutions of secondary education, where it would be much more difficult to respond to them, hampered by the quantitative factor and territorial dispersion. If we look at the example of an average city, instead of 2 - 3 large incidents, there would be 15 - 20 small ones. Considering that schools and other educational institutions are large, but closed, collective communities, where everyone knows each other and meets daily. In such conditions, if there is a direct confrontation between representatives of teenage subcultures, it is impossible to avoid conflicts and clashes. 

Note: In one plausible scenario, this could lead to a total division of the youth community, on the basis of belonging to one side. It would be difficult for other teenagers to remain neutral in such a situation. There are precedents of such situations in criminal history, when entire cities were divided by youth groups into spheres of influence and all young people between the ages of 12 and 20 were forced to either join one of the gangs or constantly endure beatings, insults, and robbery.

As I said before, I am not a supporter of conspiracy theories, so I will not speculate about world conspiracies, their goals and participants. But I fully share the experts' opinion that this situation was obviously controlled and controllable. I would add that, in my opinion, this conflict was only a test version for its organizers. Its authors needed to see how their theoretical development will show itself in real life, what else needs to be paid attention to and what points to take into account.

 

The conclusion:

We have witnessed a new technology for the rapid destabilization of the situation in society, on a scale from a single city or region to an entire continent. The novelty of this technology lies in the ultra-fast coverage of the audience, the high speed of territorial spread, as well as the use of such socio-cultural communities, which until that moment did not represent any public danger, and in the index of aggressiveness, had a minimum index. Initially, the scenario for the development of the conflict included another stage of its escalation, namely its transition to the so-called «hot phase», namely, a large number of clashes between youth groups, with the use of weapons and a large number of victims.   However, by the timely, prompt and effective actions of the law enforcement agencies, in this case this was avoided. 

The situation described above has clearly demonstrated that the scenario of mass riots, which most criminologists specializing in juvenile crime considered highly unlikely, turned out to be quite real.  Worse, this situation was closely watched by representatives of extremist communities and terrorist groups, whose ideology is now growing in influence around the world, especially among young people. Now they have realized how serious a tool they have in their hands, and received a detailed instruction on how to use it effectively. 

 

Prediction:

The current situation will pass quickly, with even mention of it in the media disappearing in April. However, it will most likely happen again this fall, but this time the scenario will be refined, taking into account the vulnerabilities detected in February and March. Other youth socio-cultural communities will be used as conflicting parties, and this time, the conflict will try to move more quickly into an aggressive phase, but after that, it will be over. 

For the organizers it will be something like a dress rehearsal. This time they will also try to take into account possible countermeasures by the law enforcement authorities. As countermeasures they will, in my opinion, try to use the method of "scattering hot spots on the map. In February, they used the tactic of creating large hotspots of conflict, but in small numbers, for this purpose they used large shopping and entertainment facilities, forming large in number but highly mobile units on constant alert, which allowed them to block the gathering places of teenagers, to stop fights and detain their participants in a short time. The next time the organizers will use the opposite tactics, there will be a lot of small skirmishes, small groups, at the maximum possible distance from each other. The media, social networks and messengers will be actively used. Taking into account operative blocking of information sources in February, this time information channels will be created in advance, with a large number of reserve information sites, in case the main ones are blocked.

 

Countermeasures:

As I have already told, the events of February-March and their possible repetition in autumn of this year are a kind of practical exercises, elements and stages of preparation, for the main event which is probably planned for the end of winter, beginning of spring 2024. Where exactly it is planned and for what purposes I do not know (and frankly not interested).

If my assumptions are correct, then there is almost a year for preparation, it is not much, but not a little, so it is important to use the time available correctly and rationally.

In more detail, my opinion on effective measures to counteract such threats, I'll describe in the second part of the article, watch for announcements of publications in the blog and social networks.

I will be glad to receive your comments, questions, additions and constructive criticism, I am always ready to discuss my publications.

Author - Roman Grishin

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