Abstract
An unprecedented number of memes emerged in response to the 2020 U.S. presidential elections. This article offers a thematic analysis of a corpus of memes published on Twitter between November 3, 2020 and January 20 2021 in relation to the U.S. presidential election. By further employing a qualitative discourse analysis and close readings of selected examples, this article explores the stances and intertextual references expressed in the memetic discourse. I illustrate which events users engage with, how they frame them using the elements of American pop culture, and the different functions such memes served for different publics. Central events – such as Donald Trump’s press conference in a Four Seasons Total Landscaping parking lot, Joe Biden’s victory and rumors about the Russian president Putin resigning – were commented upon both with broad references to widely popular franchises such as Star Wars and with multi-layered intertextual references to iconography of meme culture such as the Hockey mascot Gritty. Memes exaggerated events for comedic purposes, providing relief after a long time of tension, as well as possibly trivializing and distorting public perception of events. While meme activity peaked on November 6th and 7th, a singular viral meme of Bernie Sanders emerged after Joe Biden’s inauguration, illustrating a different genre of meme as a response to a different political situation in which the political figure serves a wide variety of purposes in commenting upon popular culture. Such memes served to establish a sense of community, agency, and catharsis after the anxieties many Democratic voters experienced prior to the election. These findings present the growing role of popular and fan culture to political discourse on mainstream social media platforms and their varied and highly flexible expression.
Highlights
Amid the political turmoil of 2020, those following the U.S elections on social media might have come across some strange figures playing central roles: From garden center parking lots next to adult stores to hairy orange monsters and hand-knit mittens gifted to a politician (Satenstein 2021), the 2020 United States presidential election was surrounded by a steady stream of prominent memes on social media platform Twitter using pop cultural references before and after Joe Biden was officially announced the 46th president of the United States
It stands to ask how and to what effect these memes engaged with political discourse concerning the events of the 2020 U.S presidential election: Which events did they focus on and how did they frame them, i.e. “select, highlight or occlude”
Through a thematic discourse analysis of the most popular memes related to the North American presidential elections on Twitter during the time frame from November 3rd to January 10th, I will demonstrate the increasing centrality of memes and popular culture to mainstream political discourse in the U.S and the functions they
Summary
Amid the political turmoil of 2020, those following the U.S elections on social media might have come across some strange figures playing central roles: From garden center parking lots next to adult stores to hairy orange monsters and hand-knit mittens gifted to a politician (Satenstein 2021), the 2020 United States presidential election was surrounded by a steady stream of prominent memes on social media platform Twitter using pop cultural references before and after Joe Biden was officially announced the 46th president of the United States. It stands to ask how and to what effect these memes engaged with political discourse concerning the events of the 2020 U.S presidential election: Which events did they focus on and how did they frame them, i.e. Through a thematic discourse analysis of the most popular memes related to the North American presidential elections on Twitter during the time frame from November 3rd to January 10th, I will demonstrate the increasing centrality of memes and popular culture to mainstream political discourse in the U.S and the functions they. This article illustrates the increasing role of the topics and practices of fan culture in memes as well as the varied functions memes serve in political discourse such as providing a sense of community, agency in sense-making, and catharsis. At the same time, such blurring between “mainstream” and “fannish” discourse offers both new forms of political engagement that politicians can potentially instrumentalize and perpetuates trivialized and skewed representations of events – warranting a closer engagement with their growing impact
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