The Guardian reports:

The two men chop peppers, slice aubergines and giggle into the camera as they delve into the art of vegan cooking. Both are wearing ski masks and T-shirts bearing Nazi symbols.

The German videos – titled Balaclava Kitchen – started in 2014 and ran for months before YouTube took down the channel for violating its guidelines.

But it offered a glimpse of how far-right groups have seized on cultural production – from clothing brands to top 40 music – to normalise their ideas, in a process that researchers say has hit new heights in the age of social media.

“It’s frightening, honestly,” said Katherine Kondor, a researcher with the Norwegian Center for Holocaust and Minority Studies. “You can be radicalised sitting on your couch.”

In affiliation with the Center for Research on Extremism (C-REX), Kondor is leading a six-country project looking at how the extreme right uses aesthetics, from fitness influencers to memes and stickers, to spread their views across Europe.

From Sweden to Spain, researchers found that extremist messaging was woven through cultural aspects of everyday life, both online and offline. [Continue reading…]