Is it Time to Embrace Memetic Warfare?

If you’ve browsed the internet for any amount of time recently, you’ve undoubtedly come across a meme.

They’re present in every nook and cranny of social media and the world wide web. Scroll through Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter for just a few moments, and you’ll run into one sooner or later.

Some of the most famous memes have already entered pop culture, traversing the internet towards other media. You’ve certainly met Pepe the Frog or Wojak — if not on the internet, then most likely in the newspaper, on TV, or in movies.

Despite their apparent silliness, memes are fast turning into a cultural phenomenon of the internet age.

But memes aren’t just another form of mindless frivolity posing as entertainment. Memes possess inherent power — and if you believe your next-door neighbor — are set to shape and manipulate public discourse and sentiment.

If there’s anything that the 2016 election proved, it was that memes can be used and effectively weaponized. We only need to look at how the “Great Meme War” of 2016 led to Donald Trump being elected as the 45th President of the United States to see how potent these seemingly harmless combinations of text and visuals can be used to sway public opinion — and influence voting behavior.

The Weaponization of Memes is No Laughing Matter

Memetic warfare has ensconced itself as a prominent feature of today’s political climate — and isn’t just the realm of internet trolls or some basement-dwelling schizophrenics. Politicians, political operatives, activists, and nation-state actors worldwide are all participating.

And for good reasons, too. Social media is an effective way to reach almost anyone and influence their thoughts and actions. The internet has become a key battleground where elections are won, wars are fought, and everything goes — a place where no holds are barred.

Nowhere was this more apparent than the 2016 elections, where an infamous Russian troll farm, the Internet Research Agency, was implicated in attempting to manipulate American voters using social media and the internet to influence the outcome of the election. Troll farms are emerging worldwide, trying to exploit social media and the internet for political gain. They succeeded in agitating online platforms by posting pro-Trump and anti-Hillary content.

Meanwhile, more and more nations embroiled in territorial conflicts, such as India and Pakistan, Israel and Palestine, and Hong Kong and China, are engaging in memetic warfare and viral propaganda to influence local and global sentiment.

How Does Memetic Warfare Impact Social Media?

Memetic wars don’t begin and end in Russia, China, or Iran. Memes are embedded in social media, which rewards them with likes, shares, and impressions.

In essence, we’re all in the age of memetic warfare, and it rages on as we obliviously scroll away on our smartphones and mobile devices and constantly consume content. And most of us have or will be subject to its implications. None of us is immune to propaganda.

Here are some of the underlying implications of memetic warfare on social media:

Transmission of distorted realities

Successful memes are simple. The best ones convey just a straightforward idea or slogan. In doing so, they have the potential to transmit an overly simplistic, if not distorted, view of the world. The power of memes lies in their immediacy, brevity, and virality. Simultaneously, due to the limited canvas memes offer, there’s limited real estate to share more detailed specifics or present a fuller picture of a particular issue. Simple messages have the potential to persuade audiences if they lack knowledge about a topic that a meme addresses.

Emotion-evoking visuals

Visuals are innate to propaganda, and the same is true for memes. As the old saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words — and that’s where memetic power lies. Images reach larger audiences than text can, and their influence is more subtle than just plain text. Furthermore, fabricated realities can be created through photo manipulation. Visuals evoke emotion, which in turn influences political views.

Humor

Humor is a powerful way to influence opinions. Individuals who are into political satire will tend to have a healthy distrust and a negative perception of politicians. Humor is also an effective way of weaponizing memes, as it conveys a message and makes it stick.

Aggressive communication strategies such as trolling and memeing are a cheap and easy way to demoralize and demonize common enemies — and we’re all subject to it.

Ultimately, we can all only accept the consequences of the relentless march of technological progress. This means accepting the inevitability of psychological manipulation from the proliferation of memes and their effects.

That’s not to mention the polarization behind partisan lines based on disinformation and meme magic. Memes can evoke strong emotions such as rage and violence. This is because memes are easily understood behind linguistic and cultural barriers, apart from their viral nature, making them easy to disseminate.

Regardless of whether you think memetic warfare is a positive or a negative, one thing’s for sure: memes will remain a pervasive facet of modern internet culture as well as society in general, and they will be for a long time.

Besides, you can’t put the genie back in the bottle.