Abstract
ABSTRACT This article addresses a selection of 43 memes featuring the ‘QAnon shaman’, the alter-ego of actor Jake Angeli and a high-profile participant in the January 2021 ‘Stop the Steal’ rally in Washington D.C. Through a combination of Critical Discourse Analysis and Integrative Framing Analysis, the article asks: ‘How do the QAnon shaman memes represent Angeli as a body of evidence about conspiracy movements such as QAnon, and what might be the ramifications of such representations for public understandings of those movements and their supporters?’ The meme discourses under investigation represent Angeli as bizarre and laughable because of his bodily adornment and failure to overthrow the election results – the latter framed as a failure of masculinity. The article contends that these memes can help reinforce patriarchal white masculinity and distort understandings of why conspiracies attract followers. Relatedly, the piece seeks to identify how conspiracy actors are (further) marginalized and ‘othered’ in media discourses, why this othering is problematic, and how this othering might be mitigated in future media representations.
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