A Presidential Bromance: How Meme Culture Upsets Race, Gender, and Political Power Dynamics

Abstract

The fictional interactions created between Obama and Biden in the BROTUS internet memes, a collection of memes highlighting a imagined bromance between President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, may be entertaining, but academic literature on internet memes contends that they also serve as a form of political rhetoric. Internet users create memes to communicate political discourse in the form of visual enthymemes. This article takes a qualitative analysis approach to break down internet user's rhetoric in the BROTUS memes to understand the implications of fictional portrayals of the presidential pair and other political figures. The BROTUS memes in this study exemplified humorous fictional narratives crafted by internet users that shaped the duo to be bromantic, heroic, and even familial. These narrative themes help internet users expresses their approval of an inversion of preexisting political and social power structures.