Elite Male Bodies: The Circulation of Alt-Right Memes, and Framing of Politicians on Social Media

Team Members

(Alphabetical order) Nicolle Lamerichs, Anna Lange-Böhmer, Dennis Nguyen, Radmilla Radojevic, Mari Carmen Puerta,

Summary of Key Findings

In 2016, Donald Trump was elected to be the next president of the United States, and it has been argued that right-winged support online was particularly of influence, as well as the spread of fake news by these communities. Indeed, some argued that the biggest winner of the 2016 US presidential election was the “Alt-Right”, an extreme right-winged community online which communicates on image boards (e.g. 4chan), Reddit and social media. By close-reading the data from the Facebook page God Emperor Trump and related hashtags on, for instance, Instagram, we managed to trace the circulation and impact of these memes, their visual connections and finally, close-read their language and themes. We argue that these communities are not only masculine in their demographics, and speech acts, but also adhere to a masculine iconography that is historically grounded in imperialist themes and genres, such as the imperial portrait.

By drawing inspiration from popular texts, such as games, as well as historical portraits, Trump is glorified by his fans and supporters, and casted in the role of the ultimate saviour and hero, aided by other politicians such as Putin. By depicting patriarchy, and even sexism, racism, and even ideas of racial purity, as a heroic narrative, the alt-right renders these images as a powerful male story. Parody and jokes are powerful tools used to discredit their opponents, with the purpose to manipulate, convince and persuade. In this sense, memes can be read as incredibly powerful, persuasive media, which are adopted by the alt-right to justify their toxic discourse. However, as we show by the widespread circulation of these memes, these jokes have real social influences.

1. Introduction

Public participation, and the enactment of citizenship, increasingly takes place in an online “participatory culture” (Jenkins, 2006). Internet memes have become an important medium to respond to political and social issues online. As highly medium-specific expressions, memes can provide a timely and even reactionary response to political debates. By linking to popular culture and well-known signs, memes have become a “spreadable” part of our remix culture.

By adopting the imagery of Dune, Warhammer, Assassin’s Creed, and various internet comics, alt-right movements have for instance engaged both their supporters and opponents online during the American presidential elections (2016) and their aftermath. These memes mediate existing controversies, issues and political persona in an intertextual way.

Humor and parody are important devices here which mediate a potentially toxic internet culture which is carried over into offline political campaigns. In these discourses, sexism, racism, and other critical issues are marginalized through jokes, thereby rendering extreme right views innocent and harmless. In addition to these jokes and sarcasm, the aesthetics of cuteness, along with subcultural references, appear often in these communities.

In this study, we investigate the iconography of online alt-right memes. We unpack how memes connect different texts from popular culture and gaming culture, but also to Western history of male leadership. An important case-study of this is alt-right portrayals of Trump as “God Emperor Trump”, which repositions Trump as a glorious, heroic leader. Semantics and iconography of internet memes represent and construct the current political landscape in the United States. While it is not our aim to trace how the circulation of these memes effected the election, we acknowledge that these memes are widespread on different social media.

We argue that these communities are not only masculine in their demographics, and speech acts, but also adhere to a masculine iconography that is historically grounded in imperialist themes and genres, such as the imperial portrait. In the reception of Trump by alt-right, this masculinity connects closely to religion as well. Trump is glorified by his fans and supporters as the ultimate saviour, aided by other politicians such as Putin.

2. Initial Data Sets

Our data consists of the Facebook page of God Emperor Trump (215,189 users on 2017-01-12), collected from July 2016 to December 2016, which is cross-compared with different data sets:

a) the most popular Facebook posts (top 100) including comments and likes from the reopened God Emperor Trump page, gathered with Netvizz
b) the Instagram hashtag #godemperortrump from October 2016 to January 2017, gathered with Netlytic
c) the Facebook page Putin memes collected from 1 January 2016 to 10 January 2017, gathered with Netvizz

In addition to these methods to collect memes and their engagement, we also used a reverse image tool to trace the source-texts and circulation of these images via https://images.google.com/. This image data, along with the annotations of the images, were coded in Atlas.ti to identify common themes in open coding. After the open coding of the images by one of our researchers, and identifying relevant themes, we did a second round of coding collaboratively which identified specific, theoretical concepts, which identified sub themes within the common themes of heroism, imperialism and masculinity.

We visualized this data set with Tableau to see how the memes develop over time, and see how the conversations increased in light of the elections. For the cross-comparison with Instagram, we visualized the connections to see which images occurred on both platforms in the sample. Here we saw that one image did not often occur on both platforms, but that similar alt-right elements and themes occurred within both, revealing a consistent discourse.

3. Research Questions

Research Question 1: How can parody and intertextuality (“referencing”/”mediation”) be used to frame political issues on the Web?

Research Question 2: How are political memes circulated and engaged with over time?

Sub questions

Language: What language/speech act are political internet memes, as circulated on Facebook? How are dramatic devices used as a way of framing in politics?

Circulation: What do the most powerful political memes have in common in terms of infrastructure? (Is popularity defined by their ranking across time, such as the amount of retweets and upvoting?) Are there semantic resemblances and resonances between these different internet memes? How is one image appropriated and given different meanings?

Representation: How are male politicians represented in memes (e.g. Trump and Putin)?

Culture: Is there a transnational component to alt-right communities? Do they speak of global issues?

3 b. Theoretical Framework

Framing of Politicians and News

We draw from controversy studies and conflict studies, and also consider issues of representation and fashioning to manipulate the news.

Intertextuality and Parody as Dramatic Devices

In Theory of Parody, Linda Hutcheon describes parody as ‘repetition with critical distance’ (1985, p. 8). Unlike pastiche, which imitates by similarity, parody bases itself on difference and self-reflexivity. Parody as a device has an important function, which Hutcheon also links to late twentieth century postmodernism. Parody unsettles all doxa, all accepted beliefs and ideologies. As a dramatic device, it can subvert dominant ideologies through humor. In alt-right discourses parody operates in similar manner. Alt-right adopts the speech of parody to unsettle accepted believes, but also to manipulate. Memes, for instance, render problematic content (e.g. racism, sexism) innocent, by using familiar images and jokes.

Trump himself also contributes to the speech acts that construct hegemonic masculinity. For instance, when in 2016 a recording of him was found by The Washington Post, in which Trump used sexist slurs, Trump responded to The Washington Post: “This was locker room banter, a private conversation that took place many years ago.” By dismissing his slurs as “locker room” talk, as crude but innocent banter just among men, he also tries to normalize these speech acts.

Body Politics and Imperialism

We will also draw from general studies on (hegemonic) masculinity; imperialism and body politics for our article. We will actively include the work of Louis van Hengel on hegemonic masculinity in Roman portraits, to show the analogies between portraits as a historical genre and the comtemporary meme culture: ‘The imperial imago is interpreted as a specifically phallocentric display of power, a regulatory fiction of a phallic masculinity, in which the gendered materiality of the body is disavowed’ (Hengel, 495).

We will unpack argument that portraits are for male viewing, as Hengel writes: ‘This analysis furthermore clarifies why the assumed spectator position of the Roman emperor portrait constitutes a masculine perspective as the privileged way of looking. As a phallic body-image structuring both social relations and psychic identifications, the imperial imago needs to be considered as a normative body-image, constructed for male viewing. This does not mean that such portraiture was observed exclusively by men, but rather that the subject positions generated by the portrait image are a priori gendered masculine, regardless of the gender of the actual viewer’ (Hengel, p 498).

The Roman imperial portrait will also be read partly in light of the gladiator, the heroic fighter, and another iconic resemblance that will be traced within the Trump memes. Online, this tradition is continued and furthered by linking to other hero's myths like Star Wars and diverse superhero comics.

4. Methodology

In this mixed method research, we give a semantic and visual analysis of memes. After collecting the data, we identify themes through open coding and frequency analysis in Atlas.ti, and then a more narrow, medium-specific analysis with a close-reading of internet memes.

Our data consists of the Facebook page of God Emperor Trump (215,189 users on 2017-01-12), collected from July 2016 to December 2016, which is cross-compared with different data sets:

a) the most popular Facebook posts (top 100) including comments and likes from the reopened God Emperor Trump page, gathered with Netvizz
b) the Instagram hashtag #godemperortrump from October 2016 to January 2017, gathered with Netlytic, and the instagram hashtag #thebestpresident from October 2016 to January 2017
c) the Facebook page Putin memes collected from 1 January 2016 to 10 January 2017, gathered with Netvizz

In addition to these methods to collect memes and their engagement, we also used a reverse image tool to trace the source-texts and circulation of these images via https://images.google.com/. This image data, along with the annotations of the images, were coded in Atlas.ti to identify common themes in open coding. After the open coding of the images by one of our researchers, and identifying relevant themes, we did a second round of coding collaboratively which identified specific, theoretical concepts, which identified sub themes within the common themes of heroism, imperialism and masculinity.

We visualized this data set with Tableau to see how the memes develop over time, and see how the conversations increased in light of the elections. For the cross-comparison with Instagram, we visualized the connections to see which images occurred on both platforms in the sample. Here we saw that one image did not often occur on both platforms, but that similar alt-right elements and themes occurred within both, revealing a consistent discourse.

For the gathering of the data sets, we focused on specific time slots, which include the presidential election. Since the data collected in these platforms amounted in a large sample (often of 10.000s of posts), we sampled these data sets based on the most popular posts. We considered the amounts of likes as an indicator of engagement and outreach, and not as a sum of parts. We see likes as a quick and consistent indicator of reach within the community. Within this set, we do pay attention to other variables such as comments as well.

5. Findings

Figure 1: Visualization of shared images in Instagram and Facebook for #godemperordonaldtrump in top 100 posts, based on likes (Data abstracted on 19-0102017 via DMI Instagram scraper)

Figure 2: Visualization of users who uploaded and commented on the most popular posts on Trump page until 2017-01-09 (Data abstracted via Netvizz)

Figure 3: Visualization of gender of users who posted the most popular tweets on hashtag #godemperor on 2017-01-09 (Data abstracted via followthehashtag)

Figure 4: Visualization of location of users who posted the most popular tweets on hashtag #godemperor on 2017-01-09 (Data abstracted via followthehashtag)

Figure 5: Example of the historical, imperialist visual language adopted by the alt-right

6. Discussion

We found a wide range of toxic public debates which emphasize hate around Hilary Clinton in light of the elections. Considering we analyzed alt-right, we do not find this surprising but it is interesting to see how far the sexist and racist discourses in the memes go. We also identified strong anti-left language which ridiculed “commies” and went far, to the point of jokes of executing them (for instance by dropping them out of helicopters).

Our most interesting findings have to do with the iconography of memes. As we argue, we do not only see a male community and jargon here, but also male symbolism and male traditions, such as the portrait, which are continued. In our data we saw many masculine images and imperialism. Putin and Trump are depicted as elite male bodies, and glorified within internet images.

Read through the lens of intertextuality, we see a particular narrative enfolding in alt-right memes. Trump and Putin are imperialist heroes, or even gladiators, and by aligning them with historical images (or semi-historical images from game culture), this ancient old body politics is continued.

In our tracing of the memes and their source-texts, we found many analogies to popular culture, but always in light of war and heroism. The alt-right adopts icons from pop-culture (e.g. Star Wars, Assassin’s Creed). We found a strong mediation of game culture and game icons (e.g. Bioshock Infinite, Magic The Gathering), which suggests parallels with Gamergate. However, even in these images, it is often war and imperialism that is referenced, for instance through emperor characters or by comparing Trump with game portrays of George Washington.

Heroism is another strong theme in the God Emperor Trump media, and related Putin memes. When they are not depicted as imperialists, they are often characterized as other strong male characters, for instance Superman or Bane from Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (Nolan, 2014).

The God emperor discourse cannot be read without attention to religion or indeed, the deification of Trump. Here there are many parallels to the alt-right which also created a mock-religion around the webcomic character Pepe, who has intertextual connections according to them to the ancient frog God from Egypt. Since Trump is often symbolized as Pepe, there is a strong connection between these mock deities. This form of ironic religion is also often related by the alt-right to the term “meme magic” , the idea that memes have powerful resonance. They adopt the term meme magicians for themselves often. This idea of magic resurfaced often, even in our limited data set and close-reading of top posts.

In terms of storytelling, we see that in these visuals, Putin and Trump are cast in the role of saviours or martyrs, who are in a holy war against the terrorists. They are the saviours of Western culture and modernity, and specifically of history as written by white Western men. They will continue this legacy and return to old ideologies, “saving” the West from feminist discourses and power influences.

By depicting patriarchy, and even sexism, racism, and even ideas of racial purity, as a heroic narrative, the alt-right renders these images innocent. Parody and jokes are powerful tools here to discredit their opponents, to manipulate, convince and persuade. In this sense, memes can be read as incredibly powerful, persuasive media, which are adopted by the alt-right to justify their toxic discourse. It is only a joke after all, but as we can tell by the widespread circulation of these memes, these jokes have real social influences.

7. Conclusions

In this study, we identified different themes in relation to the US elections, and their aftermath before Trump officially became president on 19 January 2017. By close-reading different data sets on Facebook and Instagram, on the theme of God Emperor Trump, we close-read toxic discourse of the alt-right. In this study, we saw how this political group operates, persuades and manipulates through the visual language of memes. Parody and irony proved to be powerful tools to discredit opponents, be they liberals, feminists or Clinton supporters. The analogy of war, imperialism and heroism in particular stood out, and were all connected through intertextual references. Historical images, comic books, web comis and games were particularly remediated by the alt-right to make jokes about imperialism.

Through parody, problematic issues can be framed as jokes, but not just jokes. This content stands in a long history of imperialism and glorification of strong male leaders. The alt-right continues this iconographic history to persuade and recruit. While memes have not been studied often in academia, we see them as a powerful tool in politics and news framing. The influence of this online medium must not be downplayed, since they circulate widely and certainly help create a certain image of politicians such as Trump and Putin. They are heroes on display, to be admired by their male supporters. Their alliance is depicted as a strong, and sometimes even erotic one, not just for fun and giggles, but to persuade to citizens to vote for them. In media and reception studies, memes must not be overlooked. They connect to a strong visual history. While alt-right themselves dismiss themselves often as “shitposters”, they have a clear persuasive strategy.

8. References

Hengel, L. (2009).'Imago. Roman Imperial Portraiture and the Embodiment of Gender'. Hilversum: Verloren.

Hutcheon, L. (1985). A Theory of Parody. The Teachings of Twentieth-Century Art Forms. London, New York: Routledge.

Jenkins, H. (2006a). Convergence Culture. Where Old and New Media Collide. New York & London: New York University Press.

http://www.attn.com/stories/6789/trump-supporters-language-reddit

http://www.ibtimes.com/pepe-frog-meme-origins-how-donald-trumps-alt-right-supporters-made-cartoon-hate-2423132

http://www.dailydot.com/unclick/spongegar-meme-primitive-sponge/