“Young Finn, you have already awakened, so arise!” Mobilising keyboard warriors to combatants through Finnish active club Telegram channels

Recruitment into right-wing extremism (RWE) through combat sports groups is a growing phenomenon in Europe and beyond. In Finland, Active Club Finland, Veren Laki, and Club 8 follow the international White Nationalism 3.0 strategy, seeking to mainstream extremist values through subcultural activities. Using their public Telegram channels, they circulate hyper-masculine, white-supremacist, and (neo)Nazi-inspired content aimed at drawing young men into regional RWE combat sports networks. In this study, I employ critical discourse analysis and ritual theory to examine 245 recruitment-oriented Telegram posts (2020–2024) and one related podcast episode. I explore how RWE symbols and subcultural activities function as rituals that construct collective identity and foster emotional solidarity, facilitating the transition from online discursive spaces to offline activism. The findings indicate that recruitment relies more on emotions and rituals than on arguments. Narratives of societal decline and historical struggle are employed to evoke negative emotions, which are transformed into a desire for action through promises of brotherhood and honour. Posts are saturated with RWE symbols and coded gestures that signal in-group belonging. Combat sports training serves as a central embodied ritual of discipline and collective duty, while public performances, such as street activism and Black Bloc–style demonstrations, build internal cohesion and project strength externally. Together, these practices turn ideology into emotionally charged experiences, normalising extremist ideals and moving recruits from the liminal space of online curiosity to offline activism, illustrating how the Finnish RWE milieu applies the broader strategy of White Nationalism 3.0.