Memes

El propósito de este artículo es comprobar el uso político del sentido del humor en las movilizaciones llevadas a cabo por la sociedad civil de Guatemala en defensa de los resultados obtenidos en las elecciones presidenciales de segunda vuelta, realizadas el 20 de agosto del año pasado. Usar estrategias divertidas que cohesionaron a distintos sectores sociales en defensa del voto, fue posible de advertir en las expresiones ciudadanas de inconformidad en redes sociales por medio de memes, chistes, imágenes, con acciones colectivas como bloqueos y marchas en respuesta a las acciones fraudulentas emprendidas por el ministerio público. Analizar nuevas formas de acción social que resistieron y rechazaron los intentos de regresión autoritaria contribuye a conocer la construcción de proyectos sociales en el país. Palabras clave Guatemala, elecciones, ministerio público, protesta social, sentido del humor Abstract The purpose of this article is to verify the political use of the sense of humor in the mobilizations carried out by the civil society of Guatemala, in defense of the results obtained in the second round presidential elections, held on August 20 of last year. Using fun strategies that united different social sectors in defense of the vote, it was possible to notice citizen expressions of discontent on social networks through memes, jokes, images, with collective actions such as blockades and marches in response to fraudulent actions. undertaken by the public ministry. Analyzing new forms of social action that resisted and rejected attempts at authoritarian regression contributes to understanding the construction of social projects in the country.

This article examines some methodological and epistemological challenges facing meme studies and meme research. It delves into the shifts in Anglophone meme culture post-Trump and challenges the assumption that memes are generally anonymous and antagonistic by highlighting the coexistence of collegiality and pseudonymity across diverse meme communities. Moreover, it suggests that such meme cultures can transcend from online to offline realms, requiring methodological adaptations to capture this dual dimension of creativity and sociality. The paper also addresses epistemological challenges in meme studies, starting from memetics' contentious history and critiquing the dominance of cultural evolutionary theory in contemporary meme research. It brings attention to the academic tendency to follow a "Dawkins to Shifman pipeline" citation trope in meme research and advocates for a more critical approach informed by platform studies. It argues that the future of meme studies lies at the intersection of platform ideology and content economies, urging scholars to engage with historical and political transformations in digital culture for a comprehensive understanding of memes and their societal impact.

Social media influencers-individuals who utilize various forms of network power on social networks occupy a unique identity space. On the one hand, their network power is often tied to their social identity as creators of engaging material. On the other hand, their ability to promote commercial products and services steps outside the traditionally distinct commercial–social, occupational–personal divides. In this work, the network morphologies of influencers are explored in relation to their delivery of sponsored and non-sponsored content. This article explores how the disclosure of content as ‘sponsored’ affects audience reception. We show how that the promotion of content on social media often generates higher levels of engagement and receptiveness amongst
their audience despite the platform’s assumption of organic non-commercial relationships. We find that engagement levels are highest among smaller out-degree networks. Additionally, we demonstrate that sponsored content not only returns a higher level of engagement, but that the effect of sponsorship is relatively consistent across out-degree network sizes. In sum, we suggest that social media audiences are not sensitive to commercial sponsorship when tied to identity, as long as that performance is convincing and consistent.

Wie werden Memes für die Abwertung sozialer Gruppen genutzt? Die Text-Bild-Kombinationen sind immerhin aus der digitalen Kommunikation nicht mehr wegzudenken. Auch diskriminierende Botschaften finden darin eine spielerische Form, die Reichweite verspricht. Auf breiter Datenbasis haben wir erstmals Memes untersucht, die auf Telegram von rechtsextremen und verschwörungsideologischen Akteure verbreitet werden. Welche Gruppen dabei ins Visier genommen werden und welche (uneindeutigen) Botschaften solche Bilder transportieren, behandelt dieser Policy Brief.

The global far right recruits new members by declaring that whiteness, and white masculinity in particular, is under attack, and arguing that white men must regain their rightful social status by reasserting their dominance. These claims inform both white supremacist humor and conspiracy theories, as well as blend two emotions with high levels of physiological arousal: anger and amusement. The chapter investigates the intricate relationship between far-right humor and population replacement conspiracy theories in online communities through a critical examination of a post made by a white male shooter on 8chan before he killed 51 people at the Masjid al Noor mosque and Linwood Islamic Center in Christchurch, New Zealand in 2019. I argue that white supremacist humor and conspiracy theories reflect cultural styles of ‘aggrieved entitlement,’ and online meme cultures—found and developed in forums and on message boards and social media—cultivate a shared identity of (white male) aggrieved entitlement through a particular cultural style known as memetic irony. As a cultural style of aggrieved entitlement, memetic irony thrives in screen culture, playing on affective registers as it promotes deadly population replacement conspiracy theories.

El  meme  se  ha  transformado  en  un  método  de  comunicación  para  dejar  ver  situaciones,  emociones,  pensamientos  surgidos  en  un  individuo  con  sus  grupos  sociales  de  referencia, partiendo de la apropiación simbólica del contexto al cual pertenece. Para la  recolección  de  información  como  análisis  se  requirió  del  método  fenomenológico-hermenéutico con el fin de estudiar los discursos de los participantes y el material que presenta ciertos contenidos ideológicos de los memes virtuales, los cuales pueden ser aprobados, rechazados y/o compartidos por los entrevistados. Los jóvenes comunican con sus grupos de referencia memes virtuales que abordan contenidos ideológicos de carácter religioso, político, situaciones cotidianas, entre muchos otros temas; estos re-cursos se hacen importantes para su afiliación y alteridad grupal, y generan, con ello, consecuencias respecto de su identidad social; incluso, los llevan a tener conflictos con los grupos en que se encuentran inmersos, aunque también se da la posibilidad de guardar silencio como opción frente a la presión ejercida por los demás llevando al joven a reflexionar acerca de sus filiaciones sociales.

Textual analysis is a crucial part of discourse analysis which is not purely the linguistic analysis of texts; it also includes interdiscursive analysis, i.e. seeing text in terms of the different discourses, genres, and styles they draw upon and articulate together. There are many aspects from the text to consider during analysis. Along with the description, in this research, I just analyzed the lexical style. Since it constitutes the first stage in analyzing the text. This study is aimed to describe and interpret the lexical style that is used by “Ahokers” in social media who are written by admin from different backgrounds of culture, knowledge, and social status. So, this research investigates the lexical style which is formed by “Ahokers” in Instagram from many accounts, such as: “ahok_kami”, “save.ahok”, “pendukung.ahok”, “temanahokofficial” forever_ahok”. In this research I use van Dijk’s theory which focuses on the lexical style as one of the elements of the micro structure t...

Memes spread a particular idea as presented in images, animated GIFs, videos, written text, or some other units of cultural practices. They give rise to the materialization of the expression of a given social reality within which individuals and social groups live which is why we consider them as useful tool for communicating and reconstructing social representations. During the COVID-19 confinement, many internet memes circulated but
Papers on Social Representations, Early Access (2024) [http://psr.iscte-iul.pt/index.php/PSR/index] x.2
we decided to study those on remote learning and teaching since education in that period was a great challenge. The corpus of study was gathered by manually tagged searches on social media such as Facebook, Reddit and Twitter using the following hashtags: #virtualeducation, #remoteteaching, #pandemicandschool. The internet memes analyzed show the difficulties students faced when they were confronted with remote teaching and the emotional states they experienced. These expressions and meanings allow us to reconstruct the social representation they have of this modality of teaching

Internet memes are a new genre of digital communication. Previously, they used to reflect the floating ideas between minds. With the advent of the internet, they extended to reflect the replication of ideas from minds to social network applications such as Facebook and Instagram. This paper is a corpus-based study that explores gender representation in internet memes circulating in Algerian social network. It aims at raising awareness amongst social networkers to avoid such misogyny molded as a funny meme. Therefore, the following research question is raised: How is gender represented in internet memes posted in Algerian social networks? A corpus of ten memes is selected from Algerian social networks; the analysis draws on Kress and Van Leeuwen's (2006) theory of visual design and Goffman's (1979) theory of gender representation. Results showed that internet memes disseminated in Algerian social networks are genderbiased; they portray women stereotypically. In some cases, these internet memes incite misogyny. Therefore, the study aims at raising awareness amongst social networkers to avoid such misogyny molded as a funny meme.

Mary Hesse (1966) illustrated how metaphors can help to propel the direction and conduct of scientific research.  Here we flip the script and make the case that the enterprise of science is often the driving engine, and the metaphors are not there to guide science, so much as they are there for science to rework our conceptual space (or alternatively to reinforce a pre-existing conceptual space) in order to facilitate the uptake of new scientific projects by the broader culture.  We explore some examples of this idea, showing how metaphors and memes employed by scientists are rewiring and at times reinforcing our existing conceptual frameworks. We conclude with an illustration in which this phenomenon is happening right now – the use of metaphors and memes by the cryptocurrency community in its effort to expand our understanding of blockchain technologies. We conclude with some reflections on whether those efforts at conceptual rewiring through metaphors and memes should not be more ambitious than they currently are.

O Círculo Fluminense de Estudos Filológicos e Linguísticos tem o prazer de apresentar-lhe este Número Especial, com os 42 artigos, referentes aos trabalhos recebidos até o dia 30 de abril de 2024, que foram apresentados no XVI Simpósio Nacional de Estudos Filológicos e Linguísticos, do dia 3 a 5 de abril de 2024, em formato híbrido, na Universidade do Estado da Bahia (UNEB, Campus I), em Salvador-BA, sob a coordenação geral do Prof. Dr. José Mario Botelho e do Prof. Leonardo Ferreira Kaltner e coordenação local da Profª Drª Celina Márcia de Soza Abbade e do Prof. Dr. Gildeci de Oliveira Leite, totalizando 465 páginas neste Caderno Especial, dos Anais desse XVI SINEFIL.

Today there is nothing in the giant cauldron of the internet that doesn't create an avalanche of memes in response. Considering memes as the result of the use of creativity to express ourselves, our humor, values and generally our understanding of the world, we can say that memes are a kind of digital and personal form of art with the purpose to involve creativity in the selection and manipulation of symbols, images and texts, to convey specific messages or emotions. But, what could be nowadays the relationship between artistic production and memetic aesthetics (the process behind memes creation and the ways in which these engage with and reinterpret

No presente ensaio, analisa-se de que forma a linguagem oculta em algoritmos opacos é capaz de perpetuar situações de discrimiminação em razão de gênero e da população LGBTQIA+ nos ambientes digitais, bem como tais distorções se relacionam com outras formas de violência e marginalização social.

This research paper studies the peculiarity of misinformation spread through memes in the digital age. Memes, as a prevailing online correspondence type, can quickly shape public discernment and scatter data. In any case, this power likewise makes them defenseless to abuse for spreading misinformation. Through a case study approach, this paper examines certain instances of misinformation-bearing memes, especially the COVID-19 vaccine, analyzing their content and implications for media literacy and information integrity. This paper will represent how they chose memes to broaden misinformation implanted in meme culture.

O que se pode dizer sobre as representações discursivas acerca dos temas trabalho e sujeito do trabalho na contemporaneidade digital? E mais: o que dizer quando essas representações são atravessadas pelo humor? Partindo dessa problematização, nosso objetivo, neste artigo, é refletir sobre a questão da subjetividade a partir de alguns exemplos de postagens humorísticas do Instagram. Com base no escopo teórico-metodológico da Análise de Discurso de linha francesa, acreditamos que essas postagens ilustram um micro exercício de poder e de resistência por meio de procedimentos de linguagem próprios do humor (incongruências, paródias, exageros, ironias e autoderrisão) que se contrapõem ao discurso corrente sobre o trabalho.

I have come to a serious realization that objectivity is a myth, at best a rarity. I think it was a romantic idea from the very beginning, that we can look at a fact and see it for what it is. Facts are facts. They can be numbers, they can be things, objects, even UFOs. They should be easy enough to appreciate and accept as they are. In fact, they may be to the human mind, but hardly to the human person.

It is widely accepted that the way information transfers across networks depends importantly on the structure of the network. Here, we show that the mechanism of information transfer is crucial: in many respects the effect of the specific transfer mechanism swamps network effects. Results are demonstrated in terms of three different types of transfer mechanism: germs, genes, and memes. With an emphasis on the specific case of transfer between sub-networks, we explore both the dynamics of each of these across networks and a measure of their comparative fitness. Germ and meme transfer exhibit very different dynamics across linked networks. For germs, measured in terms of time to total infection, network type rather than degree of linkage between sub-networks is the primary factor. For memes or belief transfer, measured in terms of time to consensus, it is the opposite: degree of linkage trumps network type in importance. The dynamics of genetic information transfer is unlike either ge...

Understanding the dynamics of information is crucial to many areas of research, both inside and outside of philosophy. Using computer simulations of three kinds of information, germs, genes, and memes, we show that the mechanism of information transfer often swamps network structure in terms of its effects on both the dynamics and the fitness of the information. This insight has both obvious and subtle implications for a number of questions in philosophy, including questions about the nature of information, whether there is genetic information, and how to arrange scientific communities.

The article proposes the model of the conceptual dictionary of the Old English poetic
vocabulary on the dictionary entries devoted to the simple names for the sea. The given model
deals with the various types of contexts (short and long line, structural unit and the text as a
whole), based on these, the semantic of poetic word is described

INC Reader #17
CRITICAL MEME READER III: BREAKING THE MEME

Edited by Chloë Arkenbout and İdil Galip

Published by the Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam 2024
ISBN: 9789083412566

Full book available on https://networkcultures.org/blog/publication/critical-meme-reader-iii-breaking-the-meme/

Basic medical sciences are of a solid abstract nature. Pharmacology is a challenging discipline delivered in all healthcarerelated curricula with different aims and goals. Memes are one of aiding instructional designs proved to surge students' performance and satisfaction with the educational process. Apart from assessing medical students' and faculty's perception of meme use in pharmacology learning, the current study aimed to explore the criteria of preferences and factors associated with successful memes' adoption in this discipline as one of the most challenging basic medical sciences. Methods: A biphasic study was conducted among second-year undergraduate medical students and faculty members. The study involved assessing the perceptions of staff and students, and thematic content analysis was performed on the narrative responses of the participants to explore factors contributing to the success of learning memes. Additionally, students' performance was also analyzed. Results: The use of memes in pharmacology was well perceived by medical students, with a mean satisfaction rating of 4.5/5 for high-achieving students and 4.33 for low-achieving students. Memes were associated with a performance surge (p = 0.022). Six themes emerged as criteria for a successful learning experience of meme use: previous scientific background on the meme topic, scenario context of the meme, learning concepts tackled by memes, the simplicity of meme's message, the relevance of meme's message to practice, and the modality of meme's use in the topic of education. Regarding the perception of meme use in pharmacology learning, four themes emerged: the mode and engagement of learning experience mode, the feasibility of meme use in pharmacology learning, students' attitudes towards further meme inclusion in their study, and the perceived impact of memes on students' cognitive skills. Conclusion: The use of memes in pharmacology yields positive learning outcomes. A careful selection of memes is required to ensure a successful learning experience.

Resumo En el contexto del politainment online , el recurso de los memes políticos como fórmula humorística y creativa para configurar la imagen política se ha convertido en una práctica cada vez más habitual en las campañas electorales. Especialmente con motivo de la celebración de debates electorales, la difusión de memes políticos en redes sociales ha acaparado el interés de los académicos. Este artículo toma en consideración las taxonomías establecidas sobre los tipos de memes políticos y analiza su capacidad persuasiva. En concreto, la investigación incluye un análisis cuantitativo de los principales memes difundidos en Twitter durante los dos debates electorales que tuvieron lugar en la campaña electoral de 2019 en España: 4N y 7N. El estudio está fundamentado en la perspectiva del framing integrado (textual-visual) y se sustenta sobre el estudio del poder persuasivo de los memes basado en la importancia de cada uno de los elementos de la retórica ( pathos, ethos y logos ) con ...

Este artículo examina las narrativas e intertextualidades predominantes en las imágenes meméticas sobre cambio climático. Se ha realizado un análisis exploratorio de 145 memes específicos a través de www.9gag.com, sitio web de referencia en este tipo de formatos. Los memes han sido contemplados como unidades culturales con una alta capacidad para generar engagement en los usuarios, a través del posicionamiento, la ironía y el sentimiento de pertenencia a una comunidad. Se ha observado que, en determinados aspectos como el llamado “discurso de las consecuencias”, predominan en los memes los mismos patrones que en medios tradicionales. Sin embargo, aspectos intrínsecos a este formato como la intertextualidad se revelan de gran valor para una comunicación efectiva de la compleja realidad del cambio climático en un contexto como el actual, donde se percibe cada vez más el empuje de los discursos de tipo afectivo y polarizado.

Abstract: A review of nearly 20 years of sociocultural research and trends on “ghostly episodes” (ghosts, haunted houses, and poltergeists) suggests that personal accounts, group investigations, and popular depictions of anomalous experiences function as active, meaningful, and potent cultural memes. These, in part, reflect interpersonal or group dynamics grounded in Durkheimian models, as well as Social Identity and Conflict theories. Expanding on and integrating these themes, this paper provides a general framework that explains the enduring popularity of ghost narratives in terms of their versatility, adaptability, participatory nature, universality, and scalability (VAPUS model). This perspective implies that ghostly episodes, as experiences and narratives, embody and exemplify the marketing concepts of “brand personality” and consumer engagement. Accordingly, social and cultural influences are discussed as important and inherent contextual variables that help to produce, promot...

In the paper "Seven Memes on Religion and Spirituality in the Digital Age," delivered in May 2024, at the EuARe24 conference, Gregory Price Grieve explores the profound implications of memes on identity, agency, and humanity’s future in our technologically mediated world. Grieve introduces the concept of Homo sentiens digitalis, a species immersed in a complex, interconnected digital landscape characterized by information overload and evolving identities. He examines seven iconic memes, each revealing different aspects of digital existence and their impact on contemporary society. The "Distracted Boyfriend" meme exemplifies the fluidity of digital desires and cultural evolution, while "The Puppet Master" highlights the controlling force of digital platforms over modern life. "Change My Mind" delves into the nature of digital discourse, challenging societal norms and exposing ideological contradictions. "This is Fine" captures the ironic acceptance of digital immersion’s chaos, and "Sweating Guy / Two Buttons" illustrates the anxiety of choices in a digitally mediated world.
"Disaster Girl" symbolizes the juxtaposition of innocence and chaos within the digital economy, reflecting on digital labor and alienation. Finally, "To Infinity and Beyond" embodies the potential for digital transcendence, emphasizing the human capacity for creativity and meaningful engagement despite technological constraints. Grieve’s exploration reveals that memes are not merely humorous digital artifacts but significant cultural signifiers that shape and reflect the human experience in the digital age.

Given the current rush toward the development of artificial agents, multimodal models and general-purpose algorithms, the vernaculars of automation will become more and more relevant to understand how these technologies are encountered and made sense of in everyday life. Moreover, algorithmic folklore is also likely to feed back into the very processes that support its creation and circulation: datasets incorporate more and more AI-generated content, machine learning models are trained on synthetic data, and creative practices responding to automation steer the development of future automated systems. Lastly, as demonstrated by the examples mentioned in this essay, automation will not spell the end of creative production: rather, vernacular creativity will persist as different genres and practices become reconfigured by the increasingly central role of algorithms as topic, medium, and collaborator.

(Borrador, por favor no citar sin consultar previamente)
En este trabajo (tercero y último de la serie que comenzó con Siri, 2024, y otro en prensa) se argumentará que lo que actualmente se entiende como “memes de internet” no tiene realmente mucho que ver con la memética de Dawkins. Por el contrario, se procurará encuadrarlos como objetos digitales que, como cualquier otro, son potencialmente replicables con exactitud, lo cual no tiene por qué ser ni lo principal ni lo único de interés para analizarlos. Otros objetos digitales pueden reproducirse, variar y ser seleccionados, sin ser lo que comúnmente reconocemos como memes de internet. A la inversa, muchas piezas digitales identificables intuitivamente como memes de internet ni se han replicado ni es de esperar que lo hagan. Por otra parte, a diferencia de los memes de Dawkins, no parece lo más apropiado considerar “unidades” culturales ni de ningún otro tipo a los de internet.

Ob aus Sympathie, zur Unterhaltung, vor Empörung oder mit dem Ziel der Monetarisierung: Rechtsextreme Botschaften haben einen ambivalenten Charakter angenommen. Nicht nur lassen die digitalen Kommunikate (von Memes bis TikToks) viel mehr Deutungsspielraum zu als ideologische Texte. Sie gehen auch auf die Ebene eines Kulturkampfes, der über die Verhandlung von Identitäten und nicht politischen Argumenten geführt wird. Aufklärung und Gegenpositionen prallen da schnell ab oder lösen gar Reaktanzen aus.