Reactionary content on social media platforms has long been associated with a particularly “masculine” — combative, loud— form of content production. Figures like Joe Rogan and Alex Jones epitomize the figure of a reactionary online (anti-)hero in popular imagination. However, a large swath of female reactionary influencers have gathered widespread attention. They fuse reactionary politics —rejecting both liberalism and liberal feminism — with politics of care, mobilizing rhetorical strategoies including conspiracy theories and anti-progressive critique. Moving against the historical invisibilization of women’s roles in reactionary movements, this paper asks how do female reactionary ideological influencers construct their content. Through an extended digital-ethnography, I analyze ten reactionary female-led YouTube channels and their contexts (comments, communities and cross-platform activity) and pay direct attention to the discourse and audio-visual elements of content production. Contrary to studies that find that reactionary online politics thrive through rage and anger, this study shows that it is practices of care, counsel and domesticity that sustains them. Broadly, it shows how women’s roles and politics are reworked through audio-visual practice to contribute to the increasingly normalized—and indeed normative—presence of reactionary ideas in everyday (digital) life.
