On Frogs, Monkeys, and Execution Memes: Exploring the Humor-Hate Nexus at the Intersection of Neo-Nazi and Alt-Right Movements in Sweden (original) (raw)
Related papers
"Do You Want Meme War?" Understanding the Visual Memes of the German Far Right (2019)
2019
Far-right groups use internet memes to mobilize supporters, to employ troll tactics and to disseminate hate messages to a wider public. Drawing on methodological tools from visual culture studies, we analyze memes by the German online network Reconquista Germanica, asking: What visual language, narratives and strategies do far-right memes employ to appeal a broad spectrum of potential supporters? We observe that RG´s memes use ironic ambiguity, ‘hipsterish’ aesthetics or references to popular culture to contemporize their ideological roots and to appeal multiple audiences and not-yet politicized users, while circumventing censorship. Although, at first sight, memes appear to be harmless instances of everyday visual culture, they still manage to convey neo-Nazi symbolism and key ideological narratives of hate and bigotry. Therefore, we argue for taking the calculated ambivalence of visual memes seriously instead of reducing them to a merely illustrative role.
Do You Want Meme War?" Understanding the Visual Memes of the German Far Right
Edition Politik, 2018
Far-right groups use internet memes to mobilize supporters, to employ troll factory tactics and to disseminate hate messages to a wider public. Drawing on methodological tools from visual culture studies, we analyze memes by the German online network Reconquista Germanica (RG), asking: What visual language, narratives and strategies do far-right memes employ to appeal a broad spectrum of potential supporters? We observe that RG's memes use ironic ambiguity, »hipsterish« aesthetics or references to popular culture to contemporize their ideological roots and to appeal multiple audiences and not-yet politicized users, while circumventing censorship. Although, at first sight, memes appear to be harmless instances of everyday visual culture, they still manage to convey neo-Nazi symbolism and key ideological narratives of hate and bigotry. Therefore, we argue for taking the calculated ambivalence of visual memes seriously instead of reducing them to a merely illustrative role.
Social Media + Society
This study focuses on the role of Internet memes in the communication of two far-right groups in Finland. The material consists of 426 memes posted by Finland First and the Soldiers of Odin between the years 2015 and 2017 on Facebook. Multimodal discourse analysis was applied to understand the contents, forms, and rhetorical functions communicated via the Internet memes. The analysis shows that the contents of the memes revolve around six themes: history, humor, mythology, symbols, news and mottos. By using Internet memes, the groups aim to construe a heroic imagined past, to lend legitimacy to the nationalist cause, to arouse moral anger and hate toward refugees, and to encourage the movements’ followers to fight. We argue that, for the extreme groups, Internet memes are tools to crystallize their arguments in an easily shareable and concise form, which makes the memes useful tools in persuasion and mobilization, as well as attracting new audiences.
Springer eBooks, 2022
Far-right grassroot organizations were early adopters of the internet and social media and have been using it to spread their ideologies, mobilize people and network since the 1990s. With the increased usage of social media, their communication style has naturally changed. Due to the interactive nature of social media, the far-right groups started to communicate in a savvy style based on meme and DIY aesthetics. This style allows these groups to blurry the line between serious and irony (Shifman, L.
Virality and Morphogensis of Right Wing Internet Populism, 2018
By means of two case studies, this paper examines how multimodals like the Internet meme can serve as a vehicle for ideological content, placing specific emphasis on its constitutive attribute: the re- and decontextualization. The first case study analyzes the appropriation of the Pepe the Frog meme by the Alt-Right in the US to provide linguistic categories to classify multimodal attributes of Internet memes as: • multimodals: via form, content and macro-proposition • semantic: as extension or constriction of meaning, or ultimately a conceptual shift (including a fundamental alteration of meaning) In the second case study, the previously developed categories are applied and evaluated to memes created by the New Right in Germany.
Memes as vehicles for New Right ideology
Virality and Morphogenesis of Right Wing Internet Populism, 2018
By means of two case studies, this paper examines how multimodals like the Internet meme can serve as a vehicle for ideological content, placing specific emphasis on its constitutive attribute: the re- and decontextualization. The first case study analyzes the appropriation of the Pepe the Frog meme by the Alt-Right in the US to provide linguistic categories to classify multimodal attributes of Internet memes. In the second case study, the previously developed categories are applied and evaluated to memes created by the New Right in Germany.
"Deplorable" Satire: Alt-Right Memes, White Genocide Tweets, and Redpilling Normies
Studies in American Humor, 2019
In the past decade, people associated with what is known as the alt-right have employed a strategy similar to that of progressive, antiracist satirists to advance a decidedly white supremacist, anti-Semitic, misogynist, and deadly serious agenda. As this article docu- ments, the alt-right weaponizes irony to attract and radicalize potential supporters, challenge progressive ideologies and institutions, redpill normies, and create a toxic counterpublic. Discussing examples of satiric irony generated by the extreme right alongside those produced by the (often mainstream) left, this article pairs two satirical memes, two activists’ use of irony, two ambiguously satirical tweets, and two recent controversies pertaining to racism and satire so as to illustrate how people with very di erent political commitments employ a similar style with potent e ects. Of particular signi cance are reverse racism discourses, including “white genocide,” and the increasingly complicated relationship between intentions, extremism, and satire. Keywords: alt-right, satire, ironic authenticity, social media, racism, white supremacy, white genocide, redpilling
Of Monsters and Men: The Aesthetics of the Alt-Right
2019
In February 2016, the Institute for Falsification researched the production of fake news in Veles, North Macedonia. Focusing on a specific hoax distributed from Veles via social media, this article analyses the political and aesthetic effects of fake news. It argues that fakes and hoaxes (mis)use established references to renew pre-existing discourses, media techniques, and symbols. The present definition of fakes is therefore insufficient for these practices.
Weaponizing Memes: The journalistic mediation of visual politicization
Digital Journalism, 2021
This article develops the concept of 'mimetic weaponization' for theory-building. Memes recurrently serve as identificatory markers of affiliation across social media platforms, with ensuing controversies potentially proving newsworthy. Our elaboration of weaponization refers to the purposeful deployment of memetic imagery to disrupt, undermine, attack, resist or reappropriate discursive positions pertaining to public affairs issues in the news. For alt-right memetic conflicts, impetuses range from 'sharing a joke' to promoting 'alternative facts,' rebuking 'political correctness' or 'wokeness,' defending preferred framings of 'free speech,' or signalling cynicism, distrust or dissent with 'mainstream' media, amongst other drivers. Of particular import, we argue, is the politics of othering at stake, including in the wider journalistic mediation of a meme's public significance. Rendering problematic this contested process, this article focuses on Pepe the Frog as an exemplar, showing how and why variations of this mimetic cartoon have been selectively mobilized to help normalize-ostensibly through humour, parody or satire-rules of inclusion and exclusion consistent with hate-led agendas. Digital journalism, we conclude, must improve its capacity to identify and critique mimetic weaponization so as to avoid complicity in perpetuating visceral forms of prejudice and discrimination so often presented as 'just a bit of fun.'