Copium, God Emperors, and the Memescape
How can memes help us interpret a chaotic week in the United States?
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Copium, God Emperors, and the Memescape
The first week of 2021 contains a dizzying array of digital culture oozing over into U.S. electoral politics. At the forefront, Georgia’s Senate runoff election is tomorrow. The election will determine U.S. senate majority for the next two years. Then, a series of protests are planned for Wednesday, January 6, in support of Donald Trump in what is being advertised as the president’s last stand before Vice President Michael Pence certifies the election results.
Let’s start with where it feels like this all began: Trump and Pepe.
There’s a popular meme based on artwork by artist Jon McNaughton circulating that depicts Trump as a wounded emperor guarding Pepe the Frog. The meme is loaded with references: Trump as God Emperor, Pepe as a wounded Trump supporter, and copium, or the process of grief associated with Trump’s electoral loss. Jamie and I took time to unpack Trump’s Last Stand, Copium, God Emperors, and the memescape as we head into 2021 on our newest podcast.
Then, we look at a recent history of political memes. What makes a political meme successful, like Bernie Sanders’ “I am once again asking for your financial support” meme, and what ends up becoming a viral disaster, like “Pokémon Go To The Polls” or Michael Bloomberg’s attempted meme strategy?
In looking at what makes each meme successful or unsuccessful, we look at how political campaigns that turn to intellectual property as the basis of their meme strategy are at the mercy of the corporation that owns the IP. Jamie shares a particularly great example of how corporations that control intellectual property control the narrative of a meme’s future, similar to how smaller investors can be shorted by institutional investors in the stock market.
It’s a concise view of a rapidly expanding and dizzying landscape that we’ll need to continue to develop language and literacies for.
The Domino Effect: From Gamergate to Covid-19
Twitter user @TheOmegaVirus revived the Slippery Slope meme right before the New Year to illustrate how the reactionary anger of Gamergate helped to fertilize the hostile digital landscape that eventually led to Trump’s presidential win, and, eventually, a criminal covid-19 response.
All popular memes are eventually commodified. Even Nickelback.
![Twitter avatar for @Nickelback](https://substackcdn.com/image/twitter_name/w_96/Nickelback.jpg)
Pre-Trump memes are almost hard to remember. According to KnowYourMeme, Nickelback’s Photograph meme began to circulate in 2007 and has remained more-or-less consistently present ever since.
As Ryan Broderick writes about in Garbage Day, memes that become popular enough are eventually shamelessly monetized before they die out. This is Nickelback’s moment to cash in.
I’d bet this meme finally begins to die down now, but the campaign itself marks a fitting end to a year that needed to finally end.
Is there a meme you want us to unpack? A topic you want us to cover? What should we read? Who should we talk to? We’d love to hear from you! Comment or respond via email.
We’ll be releasing a conversation with David Neiwert, author of Red Pill, Blue Pill: How to Counteract the Conspiracy Theories That Are Killing Us, next week.