Toxic White masculinity, post-truth politics and the COVID-19 infodemic

Abstract

This article demonstrates and critiques the coronavirus’ cultural agency, which thanks to this human assistance, worked in synergy with its biological form. Looking at the virus as an ‘infodemic’ and a set of transnational political events, it argues that a conjuncturally specific form of toxic, especially white, masculinity is key to understanding the virus’s entwinement with contemporary post-truth or ‘emo-truth’ politics. A conjunctural focus reveals why a certain form of aggressive (masculine and white), ruggedly individualist truth-telling, its false statements, its historical causes, and mortal effects could become so spectacularly impactful at a particular point in time, in particular places.