Professionalizing Patriots

Abstract

Abstract This chapter examines the activities of “Stop Rudeness” (StopKham) and “Lion Versus,” (Lev Protiv) two law-and-order youth initiatives that enforce and promote patriotic morals through the branding and staging of heroic masculinity. These initiatives popularize a neotraditional mindset among young people by challenging alleged offenders on camera and uploading suspenseful, humorous, and violent video clips of their raids on online platforms such as YouTube. The vigilante-entrepreneurs promote a new type of masculinity, fusing the heroic, combative figure of the rebel with that of the successful entrepreneur. This chapter examines the popularization and popification of authoritarian values in the digital era, and shows how these enterprises reflect the regime’s goals back at itself. The video clips translate governmental discourses of deservingness and undeservingness into a hip, youthful genre of social-media entertainment that reaches beyond Russia.