The Politics of Memes
The Trump Campaign and Pepe The Frog
The image above is known as "Pepe the Frog". A well-known viral meme that has resurfaced with extreme popularity since the presidential debate started to heat up earlier this year. What's a meme you ask? Well memes, according to Shifman are images that: "(a) share common characteristics of content, form, and/or stance (b)are created with awareness of each other; and (c) are circulated, imitated, and transformed via the internet by multiple users” (Shifman 341) So basically a meme in an image that provokes a response and, many times, relates to common every day things and happenings with a universal message. Pepe the Frog started out as a “normal” meme that would show up time to time on different forms or social media and within different contexts. Pepe’s character was used in many different ways such as , “Pepe the Smug Frog,” “Pepe the Sad Frog” or “Pepe the Angry Frog.” But with the beginning of the presidential campaign Pepe the Frog became the symbol used for anti-Semitic groups, white supremacist groups and the alt-right (NPR). With time there became a well-known association of Pepe the Frog meme with white-supremacy and racism. There are memes of him as Hitler, as member of KKK and Pepe committing violence against minority groups. These groups that make Pepe racist have shown their support for presidential candidate Donald Trump through his election campaign AND, in fact, Mr. Trump has showed his support and appreciation back (intentional or not)… If you have paid any attention at all to the presidential election the past months then you should be very aware of how big the role social media has played in the candidate’s campaigns. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, anything these two can get their hands on, they use as an advantage to help in their race for president. Donald Trump retweeted this meme of himself as Pepe the Frog For President. According to Martia Sturken and Lisa Cartwright, “Most if not all images have a meaning preferred by their producers…Artists, graphic designers, filmmakers, and other image producers create advertisements and many other images with the intent that we read them in a certain way” (45). Following this, people who use Pepe the Frog as a meme are associating themselves with intended meaning that has been established behind it. At this point in time Pepe the Frog and his image had constructed an audience of radical groups; almost as if these groups have “claimed” the entire Pepe meme for themselves. In actuality, after Pepe the Frog meme was used by these groups, who would want to use the meme and associate themselves with those terrible things? Pepe’s image had been tainted. And that’s the point. Donald trump assumingly aware of this image as a meme and its association with radical groups decided to retweet an image of himself as Pepe the Frog Running for President. Obviously this caused a huge outrage and fanfare over Donald Trump and his association with white supremacist, anti-Semitic and racist groups, who have also been known to show him support for president. The seemingly innocent act of retweeting a photo he possibly found amusing (especially if he was not fully aware of its’ implications) now directly impacted his political campaign in a negative way. By retweeting that photo Donald Trump basically insinuated himself to be the personification of everything Pepe the Frog represents – and not the happy, sad, smug or angry Pepe. After this incident, the problem continued to spiral out of control when Donald Trump Junior posted to Instagram yet another meme of Pepe the Frog. Putting aside personal beliefs about why Donald Trump and Donald Trump Junior posted these photos, it would be nice to assume that they had no idea of the implications and affect posting these photos would have. But more importantly, why did these two memes matter? How can an image hold so much power? By posting those memes and putting himself as Pepe the Frog, Donald Trump was positioning himself in support of the radical groups because the meme itself is in the genre of racism and hate. Shifman explains, “Memes’ invitation to further action is intrinsically reflexive, or hypersignificant: in order to create a new instance of a meme (a particular stock character macro, for example), one must acknowledge the textual category in which s/he operates, and must also publicly signify this acknowledgment by adhering to specific generic rules (in this case, inserting a short caption relevant to a specific stereotypical frame)” (355). Donald Trump Junior’s meme consists of a group of people some consider “Deploreable”. In an attempt to make fun of himself he reposted the image, and in turn, acknowledged Pepe the Frog as deplorable. One frog cartoon has carried so much weight in out culture and in this political election. Visual culture, specifically in terms of memes, transcends the boundary between the online world and the real world. Communities, groups of friends, businesses, anyone can represent their beliefs and personal thoughts though an image. Memes serve a “group of content units” that combine cultural and personal ideologies (Shifman341). “Deciphering an image brings into play our own memories, knowledge, and cultural frameworks as well as the image itself and the dominant meanings that cling to it” (Cartwright 57). Pepe the Frog in no way is a racist, white supremacist who hates Jewish people but as a result of his image being used as a meme which eventually even became labeled as a hate symbol by the Anti-Defamation League, he and his original “producer” can no longer be detached (NPR). Memes as a form of visual digital culture have the power to spread ideas around the world within seconds – to share the common perceptions and ideas of a culture, system or process such as the presidential campaign. Works Cited "I Guess We Need To Talk About Pepe The Frog." NPR. NPR, n.d. Web. 27 Oct. 2016.
Mirzoeff, Nicholas. How to See the World: An Introduction to Images, from Self-portraits to Selfies, Maps to Movies, and More. New York: Basic, n.d. Print. "Pepe the Frog." Know Your Meme News. N.p., 18 Oct. 2016. Web. 27 Oct. 2016. Shifman, L. "The Cultural Logic of Photo-Based Meme Genres." Journal of Visual Culture 13.3 (2014): 340-58. Web. Sturken, M., and Lisa Cartwright. "Ways of Seeing, Practices of Looking." Journal of Visual Culture 11.2 (2012): 151-53. Web.
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