“His Squareness” Filip Turek and his Engine Boys

Abstract

This paper relates cringe political communication on social media to gender-based disinformation and identity politics. Our analysis employs qualitative coding (Grounded Theory) of social media content produced by representatives of the rising Czech conservative political party Motorists and its youth faction, Generation Engine. Their cringe political communication, strategically targeting young men, has three dimensions: hypermasculinity, hetero-/cisnormativity, and misogyny. It ridicules gender diversity and humiliates political opponents while emphasizing and celebrating the alleged normative masculinity of Motorists’ representatives. We argue that cringe political communication, employing gender issues schematically as an anti-discourse but disguised as humor, is used to enforce societal norms and discipline the objects of cringe, including political opponents. The experience of cringing also reinforces the sense of subculture among Motorists’ supporters and alienates them from society, presented as deranged, confused, and blinded by progressive ideology.