What Do You (Really) Meme? Pandemic Memes as Social Political Repositories

Abstract

The commentary examines coronavirus memes circulating around forms of generational conflict that have risen from experiences of self-isolation. Employing participant-observation methods within online spaces of meme circulation, the commentary analyzes the political, social, and affective aspects of the memes considered. The commentary offers insight into how we operationalize our social media spaces in times of deep uncertainty in order collectively bring differing experiences and perspectives into a contingent, shifting, and affectively constituted public sphere.

Keywords:

• COVID-19;
• Digital culture
• memes
• popular culture
• virality
• pandemic
• public sphere