“You Can't Run Your SUV on Cute. Let's Go!”: Internet Memes as Delegitimizing Discourse

Abstract

In an effort to explore the role of new media technologies in environmental protest rhetoric, this paper examines Greenpeace's Let's Go! Arctic campaign, which opposed Shell's Arctic oil-drilling plans. The campaign produced a body of Internet memes designed to look like Shell's own corporate advertising. Moreover, the viral campaign used various rhetorical techniques that challenged Shell's goals and identity. Greenpeace-generated and user-generated memes cleverly use irony, corporate voice and humor to delegitimize Shell's Arctic efforts. The memes offered messages that mocked corporate practices and corporate messaging while also providing direct protest messages and accessible humor that invited identification against Shell. Thus, the memes collectively encouraged identification with Greenpeace's antidrilling, pro-environment discourse.

Keywords:

• legitimacy
• delegitimize
• Internet
• memes
• Greenpeace
• Shell oil

Notes

1. We have noted for all memes whether they were created by Greenpeace or were user-generated.