Download full text
(external source)
Citation Suggestion
Please use the following Persistent Identifier (PID) to cite this document:
https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v10i4.5726
Exports for your reference manager
What "Real" Women Want: Alt-Right Femininity Vlogs as an Anti-Feminist Populist Aesthetic
[journal article]
Abstract This article suggests that one reason for the resurgence of populism we see in the digital age is its resonance as a political aesthetic with the style and aesthetics of online culture. Influencers on social media platforms like YouTube and Instagram rely on style to attract viewers and identify the... view more
This article suggests that one reason for the resurgence of populism we see in the digital age is its resonance as a political aesthetic with the style and aesthetics of online culture. Influencers on social media platforms like YouTube and Instagram rely on style to attract viewers and identify themselves with a community. This makes fertile ground for far-right populist movements like the alt-right, who can package extremist politics in attractive content that appears to represent viewers' everyday concerns. A growing alt-right community on YouTube known as traditional or "trad" wives create videos about femininity, beauty, and relationships. However, viewers who seek out these channels for clothing or hair styling tips leave with another kind of styling: populist messaging that frames feminism as an elitist threat to the "real" femininity of everyday women. Through rhetorical analysis, I find that trad wife vloggers’ videos stylistically suture alt-right anti-feminism to the broader online influencer culture through repeated aesthetic displays of the feminine self, home, and family. I argue that this visuality acts as an aesthetic mode of veridiction for the anti-feminist message that is uniquely powerful on image-based social media platforms. It creates the appearance of broad support as similar aesthetics are repeatedly performed by many trusted influencers. I conclude by calling scholars of populism and rhetoric to attend to the way multi-layered conventions of aesthetics on social media platforms can spread extremist messaging through ambiguous content within and beyond online communities.... view less
Keywords
aesthetics; political right; gender; femininity; radicalism; populism; rhetoric; social media; online media; image of women; mysogyny; self-presentation; tradition
Classification
Political Process, Elections, Political Sociology, Political Culture
Interactive, electronic Media
Women's Studies, Feminist Studies, Gender Studies
Free Keywords
YouTube; alt-right; extremism; internet culture; trad wife vlogs
Document language
English
Publication Year
2022
Page/Pages
p. 170-179
Journal
Media and Communication, 10 (2022) 4
Issue topic
Online Communities and Populism
ISSN
2183-2439
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed