Personally, I think that these "ironic" hurtcore groups recruit from chud-orientated communities due to their surplus amount of nihilistic youth. They use edgy iconography to make posting with them "fun" and "based", offer attention and a sense of community by having an in-group that participates in something (usually raiding), and then their upper-level organizers manipulate those below them to hurt others, or hurt themselves, to satisfy their sick fetishes. I have no proof of this, but this is one hunch I have currently given all that I've seen, still, hard evidence of this pattern of behavior is necessary to properly prove or else any action born of this thread will devolve into indescript witch-hunting instead of proper informative posts identifying bad behavior that can be shared to keep the vulnerable safe.