Abstract
Radical ideologies often provide adherents with a sense of personal meaning, a purpose that can be intensely embodied through the practices and aesthetics of physical culture. In this study, I focus on two far-right digital subcultures revolving around bodybuilding and combat sports. Utilising a combination of netnography and visual analysis, I conduct a comparative contextual analysis on how both communities cultivate meaning-making around personal development and fuse the practice of physical culture to their ideology. Using visual data collected from X/Twitter and Telegram, I highlight how a sense of community and brotherhood is formed by participants in their online discourse, turning highly individualised pursuits into a communalised activity integral for shaping the identities of participants. Additionally, I examine how themed ‘aesthetic accounts’ that emphasise beauty and strength aim to contribute to the metapolitical goals of both communities and toward their aspiration of establishing a counterculture for young men. This approach allows for a deep dive into two little-explored fringe communities and illuminates the various overlaps and divergences between them.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
FAR-RIGHT, MASCULINITY, NETNOGRAPHY, VISUAL ANALYSIS, DIGITAL SUBCULTURES
