Brittany Sellner: This is how Martin Sellner’s wife dispels right-wing extremism on social media. Scholz calls for an urgent ceasefire in the Gaza war during his trip to the Middle East

Martin Sellner was arrested last Saturday in the canton of Aargau. The Austrian right-wing extremist wanted to give a lecture in Tegerfelden on ‘Ethnic Choice and Remigration’ and present his plan to deport millions of people from Germany. For this purpose, he traveled to Switzerland despite the entry ban. His arrest attracted a lot of attention and even Elon Musk commented on it.

But it’s not just Sellner himself who’s making headlines. His wife Brittany Sellner also represents right-wing extremist views – and shares them with almost 200,000 people on social media.

At first glance, Brittany’s content seems quite innocent. She seems well educated, articulate and sensitive. But the pink ribbon that wraps the contents turns brown if you listen carefully.

Brittany promotes “great exchange”

For example, she talks about the film ‘Barbie’, describes it as ‘garbage’ and warns about the portrayal of masculinity in comedy. In other videos, she attacks Emma Watson and accuses her of being responsible for the “toxic wave” of feminism since 2014. That’s what she called it Wage gap between men and women as a ‘myth’ and feminism as a hidden hatred of men.

Things then become really critical with their statements about the ‘Great Exchange’ – a political term of the New Right. She believes that white people are being driven out by uncontrolled immigration. Especially by people from Arab countries.

Even if such opinions are shared publicly over and over again, when an influencer expresses them in this way, it can have an even greater impact.

As the name suggests: influencers want to influence. This is how you build awareness among your viewers to keep them committed to you. Most do this with makeup or fitness programs, showing tips for perfect skin or a toned body. If you like the person behind the camera, you start to trust him as a viewer and buy the fitness program or recommended skin cream. Familiarity with sympathetic influencers who express their – sometimes extreme – opinions online can also be high.

“Soft framing” for right-wing extremist views

Scientist Eliane Leidig writes in her book ‘The Women of the Far Right’: ‘Right-wing extremist influencers are so successful because they merge their personal lives with ideological messages and present this in a visually attractive way.’ The female content creators could use so-called ‘soft framing’ to present their content without causing much offence. In this way they spread their ideologies – which are just as extreme as those of men – in a friendly package to a mainstream audience.

This can also be seen on Brittany’s Instagram account. There she shares targeted conservative content with her 30,000 followers. You see photos of her happy family, her son and pregnant friends. Since the American native runs her channels in English, she reaches people all over the world. Her YouTube account even has a reach of 175,000 followers.

But despite Brittany’s hypocritical attitude, she is anything but harmless. Brittnay’s account has been blocked for three months. The reason: According to NZZ, Austrian authorities investigated Martin and Brittany Sellner in 2021 for accepting donations from the extremist Christchurch attacker. Brittany is also said to have met with right-wing nationalist philosopher and Putin confidante Alexander Dugin in Moscow.