This panel explores how invocations of “tradition” shape historical and contemporary representations of conservative masculinities. The panel begins with an exploration of Nazi ideals of masculinity, examining how Hitler Youth reached into the Saxon past to find exemplars and models of military men who exemplified “protection of traditional life ways” and “the fight against a foreign culture.” Moving to masculine invocations of tradition on Twitter (X) and Instagram, panelists explore how men aesthetically craft online personas. From evangelical men who represent themselves as frontiersmen and intellectual patriarchs on Instagram to Derek Guy (aka Menswear Guy), a prominent Twitter account that offers fashion commentary and engages in online battles with conservatives and trads, the panel examines the malleability of “tradition” and the ideological uses of its invocation.
Nazi discourse was rife with internal ambivalences concerning both masculinity and tradition. Scholars have identified a martial, violent yet caring comradeship (Kühne) and a simultaneous embrace of perceived ancestral past and orientation toward a novel future (Griffin, Mosse, Steigmann-Gall). Bringing together recent scholarship on Nazi masculinity and on Nazi relationships to tradition, this paper contends that Nazi ideals of masculinity and pursuit of tradition co-constituted and shaped each other. Drawing on published Hitler Youth primary material, I analyze the portrayal of the eighth-century pagan leader Widukind as a role model for his defense of the Saxons against the Frankish army. I argue that the Hitler Youth narrative inscribes a masculinity based on the protection of an abstract traditionalism in the face of existential struggle. This intervention illustrates the necessity of putting Nazi masculinities and traditionalisms in conversation in order to better understand both.
Derek Guy (also known as the Menswear Guy) has amassed 1.2 million followers on Twitter posting about menswear aesthetics and criticizing celebrities and politicians for their poor taste. What separates Guy from other menswear accounts, and what makes him an interesting comparison to many participants in religious discourse, is his self-conscious relationship to tradition and his frequent uses of traditionalism to outflank “trads” in online battles. He chides those who “performatively worship tradition but know very little about tradition” and yet “use the superficial symbols of masculinity and tradition to impress people.” He has also called certain of his fashion choices a “true retvrn to tradition.” His sustained comparison between fashion and language (reminiscent of Judith Butler’s application of citationality to gender) allows Guy to have a flexible, open-ended, and performative use of tradition that can be compared with uses of tradition common to religious neo-traditionalists.
This paper highlights how two Christian Reconstructionists, Joel Webbon and Eric Conn, use Instagram to mainstream their extremist ideology by embedding it within widely recognizable and aspirational masculine aesthetics and making their radical vision appear palatable and even desirable to mainstream conservative evangelicals. Rather than presenting themselves as fringe extremists, Conn and Webbon leverage masculine archetypes—the rugged frontiersman and intellectual patriarch—to attract followers, establish credibility, and reinforce patriarchal authority. In doing so, they demonstrate how militant masculinities are not monolithic but instead draw from multiple scripts to reach different audiences. This paper contributes to scholarship on evangelical masculinity, social media, and far-right digital culture by showing how ideological movements thrive and attract new followers in the digital age, not merely through explicit political messaging but through aesthetic and performative strategies that shape how power and authority are understood.