The hidden power of radical memes

It wasn’t about the funny pictures. These may be the best-known form of so-called memes. But in obscure corners of the internet, all kinds of harsh, vicious and gruesome memes have also been circulating for decades, which are used as a political weapon.

If they are shared often enough on social media, they eventually penetrate the mainstream of public opinion. In this way they can influence and even disrupt society and politics.

Those kinds of dark memes, their origins and their popularity, were investigated by the three authors of the book Meme Wars. The book tells, as the subtitle puts it, “the untold story of the online fight to overthrow American democracy.” It is a message from the digital underworld, a contemporary history of a powerful but long overlooked media phenomenon. Memes as the political media of our time.

For example, a drawing of Trump in the guise of Pepe the Frog, beloved by the far right, grinning in front of a border fence behind which a Mexican family stands. Or Obama’s famous blue-and-red poster, where the first and last letters of the word ‘change’ are crossed out. And in addition, for those who have not yet understood, Obama with a broken neck on the noose.

“The history of the internet is often told from a progressive, left-libertarian point of view, with an emphasis on innovation and the internet as a force for good,” says Joan Donovan. She is one of the authors, and in addition to being a punk rocker and co-inventor of the beaver emoji, she is also a sociologist and director of research at Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics, and Government Policy.

“We wanted to show something different: how the far right learned to deal with the internet. How they coordinate their actions among themselves, how they spread certain political ideas and influence established politics. And how they manage to get ideas from the margins to the mainstream with the help of memes.”

Memes can be crafted images (sometimes accompanied by text) that express an idea, or very short videos, as well as gestures or slogans of a few words, such as #StopTheSteal. That slogan has been widely spread online with hashtags, printed on T-shirts and embraced by Republican politicians and millions of voters. Donald Trump is spreading the lie that he actually won the 2020 presidential election.

That three-word meme was ready in 2016 to be tossed onto the internet by Trump supporters if, as virtually everyone expected, Trump lost the election that year. He won, but when Trump did lose in 2020, #StopTheSteal was still put into circulation and immediately shared eagerly. This is how the meme quickly moved from the digital world to the physical world – where people who had found each other online through memes and hashtags stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

“Memes are used because they can convey a complex message in a very short space of time. With #StopTheSteal you not only say that you believe that the elections were not fair, you can also use it to mobilize and radicalize people and reinforce conspiracy theories. For example, the claim that people from a polling station were bribed, or that voting machines were hacked. And you can show that you belong to a certain group. Memes give people something to hold on to, they are a binding factor for online communities.

“Interestingly, what happened when the spread of #StopTheSteal started to gain momentum, especially on Facebook, where suddenly thousands of people were added to groups where that meme was circulating. Social media companies noticed that and thought, what’s happening here, and tried to stop it. But that only amplified the fierceness of the movement. Because people got the feeling that they were being gagged, it became even more attractive to share the meme.”

Has Trump understood the power of memes better than his opponents?

“It worked well for him,” says co-author Brian Friedberg, an anthropologist specializing in subcultures (the third author, technology journalist Emily Dreyfuss, did not participate in the conversation with NRC). “As president, Trump used memes to communicate with his base. It allowed him and his supporters to spread his message without having to worry about the mainstream media.

“But many Republican politicians who were strongly associated with that meme movement, and with not accepting the results of the presidential election, were defeated in the midterm elections this month. And for the people who were motivated by memes to participate in the storming of the Capitol, it often ended badly: they are in prison or awaiting trial.”

Does the left also use memes?

Donovan: “Movements like #OccupyWallStreet and #BlackLivesMatter used the same techniques. But memes often become popular when they cross borders, are shocking or even cruel. That sometimes wrings on the left. When Trump was ridiculed with a picture in which he was depicted fat and naked, it quickly led to criticism in the left-wing ranks: you shouldn’t judge someone by their appearance, they thought.

“Our book is about political memes from the right. But most memes are non-political and harmless, are only spread because they’re funny, and don’t have a big political impact either. For example, after the inauguration of Joe Biden, there was a nice meme from Bernie Sanders.”

In 2016 and 2020, the leftist Sanders had unsuccessfully attempted to become the Democratic nominee for president. At the ceremonial inauguration of Biden, he sat lonely and cold on a folding chair, with thick knitted mittens and his arms folded. Donovan: “It was funny, but it also nicely reflected his political ambivalence towards Joe Biden, there was something bitter about it that he had to sit through an entire inauguration ceremony again.”

Is a flag hanging upside down, as it is now in many places in the Netherlands, also a meme?

Donovan: “It is the most classic reversal of a symbol. The power of memes is that you can add anything to them, participate in anything, and also give all kinds of meanings to them. Such an inverted flag conveys: the flag belongs more to the people than to those in power. An important symbol of the state thus becomes a symbol for the undermining of the state.

An upturned flag says: the flag belongs more to the people than to those in power

Joan Donovan media researcher

“You can be a patriot and against the government at the same time, just as you can be Christian and against the church. If it is true that the government is corrupt and the elections have been stolen, then you have to respect the ferocity of the uprising against it. It is important to see people being politically mobilized in this way.

“Flags play an important role in our book. For centuries, left and right anarchists in the United States have used the Gadden flag: a flag with a rattlesnake with the words: don’t step on me. It is important that it is a rattlesnake, which always warns with its rattle before attacking. According to Benjamin Franklin, it is a symbol of American individualism, it represents the message: leave me alone. If you provoke me, I will attack.”

In your book you call on politicians and voters of both parties to stop participating in ‘meme wars’. Is that realistic?

Friedberg: “Perhaps politicians are learning the lesson that memes can only yield political gains in the short term. Look what happened to #LockHerUp: popular as a meme against Hillary Clinton among Trump supporters in 2016, but locking her up never happened. And despite the success of #BuildThe Wall, only a partial border wall still stands.”

Donovan: “And wonder what left-wing protesters have achieved with the successful memes #OccupyWallStreet and #BlackLivesMatter. Culturally, something has changed, but in terms of politics and policy everything has remained the same.”

Friedberg: “Memes will go out of fashion at some point, as happens with all cultural expressions. In any case, the style will change and today’s memes will soon seem silly and old-fashioned and therefore less powerful.

“But some of the most toxic memes are racist, anti-Semitic or anti-misogynistic. Without societal changes, those toxic ideas will not disappear. At most, they will have a different form of expression.”