Performance of “Loyalty” in Russian Israeli Digital Media
This article examines how emotional and moral repertoires, as well as patterns of media performance shaped under Putin’s authoritarian regime in Russia, are translated, adapted, and reactivated within the political context of the democratic decline in Israel. The authors interpret mediated performances of loyalty among recent Russian-speaking migrants in Israel through the case of two influential bloggers. The analysis focuses on two formats of loyalty performance across short-form digital media: one is articulated through political commentary on YouTube Shorts, and another is expressed through lifestyle blogging on Instagram Reels. The first is enacted through confrontation, aggressive attacks on political opponents, and mockery of ideological adversaries in the style of “agitainment” and fake debunking. In contrast, the lifestyle performance of loyalty is structured through the avoidance of explicit expression relating to politics, and an adoption of a language focusing on self-care and well-being, expressing what Lauren Berlant terms cruel optimism. The article argues that both forms of loyalty are shaped by the classed and gendered dispositions of the new Russian middle class, from which most recent migrants to Israel originate. Loyalty is conceptualized not as a patriotic devotion to the state, but as a negotiated contract with the political regime under conditions of democratic erosion; it emerges in the gap between full identification and open resistance. The article introduces and discusses loyalty as an important analytical category for understanding contemporary migrant communities and their emotional and pragmatic civic attachments. The comparative work in this text serves as an interpretive tool through which immigrants emerge as reorganizing positions of loyalty, criticism, and silence, and as situating themselves within a changing political and civic order.
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