‘We can sh*t for another 10 years.’ Toilet paper, pandemic politics and cultural citizenship

ABSTRACT

The global reality of the COVID-19/Corona pandemic paradoxically boosted national politics, broadcasting and citizenship. Media coverage, especially initially, praised citizen solidarity and the creative solutions that were pioneered to care for each other. A year later, a lasting social learning curve throughout and after this crisis seems illusory. The pandemic, this paper argues, needs to be understood in a longer timeframe as the working through and coming to terms with neo-liberal governmentality. The (often hilarious) early responses on social media provide a strong entry to do so. Our focus will be on the Netherlands which had a so-called ‘intelligent’ lockdown during the first wave of COVID-19 in the spring of 2020. Using the authors’ own sharing back and forth of toilet paper memes as a starting point, we aim to explore the notion of collective self-reflection and citizen co-education underlying both heated and simply ridiculous posts. Using previous discussion of cultural citizenship, this paper inquires into how pandemic citizenship played out as a vast exercise in disciplining and distinction through jokes and anger. The material suggests a nostalgic turn that might point to an implicitly voiced critique of neoliberal governmentality.

KEYWORDS:

• Cultural citizenship
• pandemic
• humour
• memes
• covid-19

Acknowledgments

We want to thank Sofie van Hamersveld, Michael Kardolus and Erinn Rövekamp. The initial idea for this paper originated in a tutorial group at the University of Amsterdam’s Media Studies Research Master – cut short by the ‘smart’ lockdown in the Netherlands. Thank you for collecting memes and inspiring discussions of toilet paper. Pity the pearl toilet paper earrings did not get to feature in the paper. We also want to thank the anonymous reviewers for their generous comments and suggestions and Sean and Jian for inviting us. Much appreciated!

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Resulting in the scarcity and spread of intensive care beds for example, which had been downsized for reasons of cost efficiency in the Netherlands (as well as elsewhere).

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMW4AqbuSGg

3. For instance, see https://www.kapwing.com/meme-maker.

4. Arnold on Twitter: ‘Stay at home as much as possible. Listen to the experts, ignore the morons (foreheads). We will get through this together. https://t.co/YkUiQbDkRT’

5. Considering the spreadable logic and ‘mashed-up’ character of memes, providing an original source is somewhat impossible. Instead, we are pointing towards the first recognized source for each meme while acknowledging that their idea might have originated somewhere else.

6. A sign language translator was always present which is unusual for ordinary news coverage.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Joke Hermes

Joke Hermes is a Professor of Media, Culture and Citizenship at Inholland University of Applied Sciences. She teaches television and cross-media culture at the University of Amsterdam and is Founding Co-Editor of the European Journal of Cultural Studies. Currently her work focuses on questions of inclusion and the creative industries, and on the development of participatory design research practice as a new format for audience research.

Linda Kopitz

Linda Kopitz has studied at the University of Leipzig, Germany, and the University of Miami, USA, and holds a Research Master in Television and Cross-Media Culture from the University of Amsterdam. Connecting her professional experience as a Creative Director with her research, she is currently working as a Lecturer in Cross-Media Culture at the University of Amsterdam, where her main research interests are advertising, gender and the intersection between technology and the everyday.