Performing Disgust : Affective Intersections of Misogyny, Racism, and Homophobia in Radical-Right Online Discussion

Abstract

Social media is an increasingly important tool for the dissemination of misogynistic, xenophobic, and nationalist radical-right messages. As injurious modes of communication spread on the internet and trickle into societal discussions, polarizing communication also becomes normalized in traditional media and everyday discussions. In this chapter, we trace how disgust becomes politicized in radical-right populist rhetoric online. The radical right movement’s affective discourse is used to arouse strong emotions in the followers. We are interested in how repulsion toward women, typical of texts published in many online environments, affectively intersects with repulsion towards (other) gendered, sexualized and racialized others. We analyse how disgust works performatively on a far-right online site Patriootti.com [Patriot]. This Finnish website is a part of a larger network of malicious far-right sites. It serves as an example of transnational affective rhetoric that fuels disgust, hatred, and violence against those constructed as others. Our analysis draws on research on populism and Sara Ahmed’s affect theory. We pay attention to how adversarial groups are constructed, helped by affective mobilization, and enquire who are the us and who are the others. Disgust as a moral emotion, we suggest, serves as an instrument for mobilizing people with populist rhetoric in promoting racist and even fascist politics.