Abstract
In addition to using new modes of communication made possible by the internet, extreme political groups are also adopting innovative styles common to internet culture. Internet memes are texts that are easily shared—funny and laced with dense symbolism. However, what we are currently used to thinking of as internet memes are a partial departure from the original description of a meme as a cultural replicator. This chapter charts the development of memes, beginning with their use in evolutionary biology and proceeding to their appropriation to describe content traded on social networks by extreme political activists. The primary aim of this chapter is to serve as something of a guide to policy-makers and practitioners who are required to make sense of memes, either in tracking developments within extremist circles or as part of investigations. This chapter also makes the case that extremist memes as we currently understand them are potentially poor cultural replicators, relying too much on insider humour and prior knowledge to replicate ideas in the uninitiated. Rather than acting as persuasive tools for reprogramming cultural norms as suggested by some activists, memes are better suited to deepening involvement among already committed activists and, in some situations, raising awareness of the existence of a movement as was the case recently with the extreme right alt-right network.
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Notes
- 1.
Shifman (2013: 363) notes that the phrase Die Mneme (from the Greek for memory) had already been coined as a term for cultural evolution in 1870 by Austrian sociologist Ewald Hering, thus perhaps giving an unintended example of independent mutation in memes over 100 years apart.
- 2.
Adbusters can be accessed here: http://www.adbusters.org/.
- 3.
Which would now probably be described as distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks.
- 4.
To be clear, the use of the term alt-right in this chapter without quotation marks should not be taken by readers as any kind of endorsement or legitimisation of the network’s views. Although the network is diverse and membership is fluid, elements of the alt-right do strongly resemble fascism with neo-Nazi overtones, albeit often with a heavily ironic twist. The term alt-right is used here without quotation marks to be as objective and dispassionate as possible in discussing a highly emotive issue, and in recognition of the likely specialist audience for this work.
- 5.
In Archaeofuturism, Faye, an author of the new right, calls for a closer fusion between those on the right seeking new social and technical forms, and those seeking a return to tradition.
- 6.
Day (real name Theodore Beale) is both a science fiction author and a far-right provocateur best known for attempting to game the 2015 Hugo science fiction awards by encouraging supporters to nominate a slate of authors he approved of, known as the Rabid Puppies. This resulted in several award categories where only puppy writers were nominated and corresponding votes to make no award in that category. For more, see the account in Wired magazine at: https://www.wired.com/2015/08/won-science-fictions-hugo-awards-matters/.
- 7.
The ADL’s database is available here: http://www.adl.org/combating-hate/hate-on-display/.
- 8.
The Gadsen flag traditionally features a rattle snake on a yellow filed on the words ‘don’t tread on me’.
- 9.
See the anonymous posting here: https://pepethefrogfaith.wordpress.com/.
- 10.
Note as well as an ancient Egyptian god, Kek is also the translation of the expression ‘lol’ in the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) World of Warcraft between Alliance and Horde players.
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Acknowledgement
This work was funded by the Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats (CREST). CREST is commissioned by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC Award: ES/N009614/1) with funding from the UK Intelligence Community.
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Lee, B. (2020). ‘Neo-Nazis Have Stolen Our Memes’: Making Sense of Extreme Memes. In: Littler, M., Lee, B. (eds) Digital Extremisms. Palgrave Studies in Cybercrime and Cybersecurity. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30138-5_5
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