Memes

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Memes

Wiki

Memes are “a group of digital items sharing common characteristics of content, form; created with awareness of each other; circulated, imitated and transformed via the internet by many” (Phillips, 2016).

Virality

Wiki

The spreading of digital content, such as images, videos, or links, in a short period of time through online media such as Social Networking Sites (SNSs) and electronic mail, shared by a large number of people.

Brittany Broski: viral content creator and authentic influencer

Paper

Kelly Burnet

24/05/2021

9 minutes to read

Brittany Broski is a successful content creator and influencer. In the last year, she has built a big community of loyal followers is still growing rapidly. How did she achieve this? How does she present herself as authentic?

The politics of Karen memes

Paper

Pleun Kersten

17/05/2021

9 minutes to read

This article analyzes the 'karen' meme, and how it has evolved as a critique of white supremacy.

What the Suez Blockage can teach us about digital literacy

Article

Simon Moser

Aleksandra Dimitrova

14/06/2021

8 minutes to read

The 2021 Suez Blockage may have been a disaster for global trade, yet it also provides for a splendid case study of digital literacies. This article analyzes how online groups implement their own literacies into memes related to the event.

a meme showing a character next to a graph labelled "stonk"

The Conflicted Interests of r/WallStreetBets: Political movement or “degenerates gambling?”

Article

Lucie Chateau

02/02/2021

14 minutes to read

What are "memestocks" and why have they disrupted the market? A look inside the subreddit whose short-stocking strategy has shaken up the world of finance and how its memes function to bind the community together.

Jacksepticeye disapprovingly pointing at the small subscriber gap between PewDiePie and T-Series

For legal reasons that's a joke: how memes bolstered YouTube's biggest subscription competition

Article

Paige Christianne Andres

03/05/2021

14 minutes to read

The PewDiePie vs. T-Series feud took the internet by storm from late 2018 to early 2019. Here is how PewDiePie utilised meme marketing to try and hit 100M subscribers before T-Series.

‘5G users be like’: (In)visibility as evidence in 5G conspiracy memes

Article

Mijke Akkermans

09/09/2020

15 minutes to read

For several years, conspiracy theorists have promoted the idea that 5G waves are harmful for one's health, now even relating this to the coronavirus. This paper explores how memes are used to define (in)visibility as evidence within this theory.

Coronavirus memes: Laughing the apocalypse away

Article

Jana Nuiten

David Scholl

14/09/2020

10 minutes to read

As the coronavirus pandemic has taken hold, coronavirus memes have emerged. In memes, people find an outlet for being humorous and coping with the harsh circumstances they are living in at the moment.

An Instagram feed shows an alert about coronavirus, followed by a post that reads "we will feel alive again"

Memeing under Covid-19: On the phatic internet and collectivity

Article

Lucie Chateau

07/05/2020

16 minutes to read

This article looks at how our online communication practices have changed under the Covid-19 crisis. It looks at collective memeing, text chains and Boomer Images to reflect on what connections are being made in these extraordinary times.