Cast off: how knitters turned nasty

At first glance, Nathan Taylor might seem the very definition of a ‘right on’ hipster. He goes by the name of ‘Sockmatician’ online and he’s famous in the knitting world for his complicated double-knit patterns. On his Instagram, in between videos of people speed-knitting and many, many photos of socks, Taylor had posts about what it was like to be an HIV-positive man who came out in the 1980s. He dislikes Donald Trump and Brexit. He has even set up ‘inclusive hashtags’ such as #diversknitty, and his profile carefully sets out the pronouns people should use to address him.

So far, so woke. But recently Sockmatician has found himself accused of being a ‘white supremacist’, committing ‘violence against people from ethnic minorities’ and being ‘dangerous’. His crime wasn’t to suddenly join the alt-right, but something apparently far worse. He posted a poem on Instagram about ‘diversknitty’ in which he boasted it was a year since he had founded this hashtag, and asked that people use it kindly, rather than attacking one another.