The Meme is the Message Culture and Incels Francesco Imbimbo 14th May 2020

Contents

Birth of ‘Meme’ ...... 1 4chan Meme Identity ...... 1 Duality of Identity Memetics ...... 1 Political Pepe ...... 1 Wistful ...... 2 TFWNOGF...... 3 Inceldom ...... 3 Conclusion ...... 4

Bibliography 5

Author Biography 6

Birth of ‘Meme’

As human culture and technology evolve, as does the expression of comedy, mirroring the society along with it. Within the post-PC era (D.D.Clark 1999 ) comedy is accelerating at an incredible pace, prominately with memes taking its form. Meme, first introduced by Richard Dawkins (1976 ), describes the flow and flux of culture by copying or imitation from person to person. Its realisation can vary from popular tunes, catch phrases, fashion trends, architectural styles, ways of doing things, and so on. While this term was conceived long before the post dot com burst, since 2005 it was reterritorialised (Deleuze & Guattari 1980 ) by Internet users, who invoke it to describe their mundane cultural activities. In addition to Dawkin’s definition, I like to add Hito Steyerl’s poor image (2018 ) which compliments the memes of today, being mutable from constant uploading, downloading, editing, and then reuploading, ad infinitum. Furthermore, online users are in a position to participate, providing the largest catalyst for a new type of meme: customisable memes. Important to note: a meme is not a meme until someone replicates it by passing it on to someone else, not posted randomly, but addressing a specific group directly tied to the values, beliefs and practices of that group (Nissenbaum & Shifman 2015 ). In this essay I shall explore how the 4chan tribe use memes to contribute to its hivemind ideology, birthing a new stereotype of digital and physical self-harm.

4chan Meme Identity

Recently, Internet memes have been added to the long list of visual media that we consume on a daily basis. Recognising this, a growing body of academic research (e.g. Burgess, 2008; Knobel and Lankshear, 2007; Milner, 2012; Miltner, 2014; Shifman, 2014 ) consequently strives to decipher the unique qualities, as well as the social and cultural implications, of Internet memes. Though to my disappointment, they fail to distinguish 4chan as a founding father to be delved into on its own. Controversially, all the aforementioned academics are boomers, entirely disconnected from ever understanding this phenomena, them being a digital immigrant (Marc Prensky 2001 ). I as, a digital native (ibid), must of been 7 or 8 when I first clicked on 4chan in 2007, the most influential hub for memes and their reproduction. An anonymous site, where Internet memes constitute an important facet of 4chan, serving as an integral part of many discussions since 2003. Thankfully, at that age I was lawful to immediately exit as the warning pop up tells to cease

1 Figure 1: Trump Pepe

and not continue if under the age of 18. But admittedly ignored when it came to being 14, returning to witness meme history in the making till present day. Behind the site’s gore, pornography, genocide, racism, self-hatred, suicide, and violence, is a post modern art exhibit (Kenneth Brown 2020 ), currently increasing in ‘normie’-isation of the site’s visibility in mainstream culture.

Duality of Identity Memetics

Political Pepe

4chan’s peak existed roughly between 2006 and 2016, with the climax of 2016 when their meme idol, , gained major media attention for having triggered, then presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, who branded it as a signature image of the alt-right and white supremacist movements. Earlier that year Trump himself had retweeted a ‘Pepe portrait’ of himself, reinforcing a critical change of memes; from simply being strands of populist discourse (Milner 2012 ), to now being stitched together into a calcified, weaponised political ideology (McLeod & Zimdars 2020 ). It’s at this point, no one can deny, that fringe Internet culture and communities have the potential for producing actual significant repercussions in real life. Another iconic moment of Pepe history is in Hong Kong 2019, where Pepe is used as a symbol of resistance against an authoritarian state, highlighting the way memes can have a different meaning for certain people and even at a particular time. 4chan users find themselves feeling the same dumbfoundedness as the creator, Matt Furie, back in 2005, when his comic book character Pepe suddenly became the Internet’s in 2008. Internet cynicism is nothing new with ‘Pepe posting.’ It holds the same content (Mcluhan 1964 ) as the Trollface before it, which furthermore has the content of Rickrolling before that, all three holding the same trickster/cynical essence that has permeated the Internet for decades and will continue. Trolling increased the moment the Internet became populated with non-technologically-minded people. . .[i.e. *Digital Immigrants (Marc Prensky 2001)] . Trolls work to remind the masses that have lapped onto the shores of the Internet that there is a class of geek who, as their name suggests, will cause Internet grief, hell, misery( Angela Negal 2017). It’s about winning the space for themselves, the truly deserved. They have a hatred of a “clueless girl with mainstream tastes trying to infiltrate a geeky subculture . . . who fails to use the correct markers of belonging, such as correct slang and depth of elite knowledge. . . [i.e. its memes.] (ibid) .”* This hatred of the clueless girl is a point to comeback to when explaining incels. As of 2020, Pepe, unlike most memes, continues to live and be

2 Figure 2: The NPC Wojak

memed on through mutations, yet still retaining the meme’s smugful essence. However, the 4chan identity is no longer represented by the prideful Pepe alone; a duality is introduced.

Wistful Wojak

First created in 2010, Wojak, is a symbolically striking contrast from Pepe The Frog, with similar accessible ease of mutations of its image. On the other hand, Wojak has kept within the 4chan community perhaps due to its sensitive portrayal of the community. Only an off shoot mutated sub-wojak known as ‘The NPC’ became viral, as it was graffitied onto a billboard of a Hollywood real time TV host in 2019. This sub-wojak is another right-wing symbol to criticise and dehumanise the left ‘SJWs’. Amounting them to non-player characters from video games with no internality, agency, or capacity for critical thought, adopting the same worldview automatically, a robot essentially. The NPC further reflects the lack of empathy for everyone outside of the 4chan community and winning the space for themselves (Angela Negal 2017 ). Whereas Pepe was commonly seen with the stock caption “feels good man”; a connotation of boasting, Wojak is “that feels man”; used generally to express loneliness. Recently in April 2020, this new 4chan representative has seeped into mainstream attention with a documentary based entirely on Wojak titled TFW NO GF. To summarise the dichotomy Kantbot, a pseudo-intellectual in the aforementioned documentary above, says: “The Pepe is like your troll self, your public persona, you being cocky, saying all this crazy shit, being smug, ironic, getting under people’s skin and being cool about it. But on the other half we all have a Wojak which is like our private self who isn’t like that at all, he is very depressed, feeling inadequate, can’t fulfill his own goals, who has all these feelings he can’t manage. This is what Social Media is helping to create, a fragmentation of our personalities. So when you’re online trolling, being a Pepe, but really inside you are the Wojak no one really knows about.”

TFW NO GF

The caption “TFW NO GF” is used online to describe a lack of romantic companionship: that feel when no girlfriend (notice its mutation from the ‘that feel man’ caption). Since then, it has evolved to symbolize a greater state of existence defined by isolation, rejection and alienation. Wojak serves as a mascot to a vast online community consisting of self-described “hyper-anonymous twenty somethings” and “guys who slipped between the cracks”, stereotyped as incels. From the first 5 minute introduction it was clear how misunderstood this documentary was going to be. Janet Pierson, the “Director of Film” at SXSW gives a brief introduction at the beginning of the film, and after talking about how deeply she relates to it she concludes by saying “enjoy TWF no GF.” That mixup is emblematic of the problems with this film. With potential to explore the sociology of isolated people that grow up on the Internet feels instead, incredibly

3 Figure 3: Wojak Pepe Duality

superficial, failing to mention the toxicity and violence that legitimately come from these communities. But rather, Alex Lee Moyer the director, upholds a bias in her portrayal of these incels in the documentary. Whereas Angela Negela, author of Kill all Normies, dismissed 4chan culture as purely transgressive, devoid of any deeper reflection of trends in youth values. As I write this a News story hit on 19th May 2020 bringing to my attention the media as another perspective that sheds light on how others perceive 4chan users, specifically the incels that come out of it.

Inceldom

Incel is a portmanteau of involuntary celibate. This subculture is primarily exemplified by the disaffected young white men on these . Many of them are ‘neets’: not in education or employment (to my conjecture the reason for the NPC to have mutated into existence), live with their parents and are extremely misogynistic. They’re angry at feminism and think it leads to the decline of civilization since women should be here to serve men: women will either trick them into raising children that aren’t theirs, get pregnant intentionally in order to trap them, or falsely accuse them of rape (Angela Negal 2017 ). Their idea of a girlfriend is a mix of maid and prostitute because that’s what it traditionally was for thousands of years. Incel psychology is with underlying masochistic nihilism, seen in Wojak’s ‘Doomer’ off branch, essentially basing an identity over not getting laid. Taken to the extreme Roger Elliot’s murder spree in Isla Vista is a climax of what incels can come to. This tragedy gave Elliot cult status with some of the men on these sites, and then others followed. Back in February 2020 a 17 year old boy killed a women in Canada, as to what the media are now, May 19th 2020, labeling the charges as incel terrorism. It is presented to us as fanaticism described as an ideology though what feels like a fanatically pushed media narrative itself. A radically different perspective of dealing with this phenomena from what Moyler was doing in the documentary, and from what Angela Negela in her book completely dismissed. It’s a cliché at this point to say that increased connectivity has actually driven us further apart, but there’s more than an element of truth to it. In absence of religion, family and friends, these isolated individuals completely disconnected from reality start to get into ideologies becoming fanatical about them (Kenneth Brown 2020 ). Politically, this is not only on the right, on the left they start to say things like: ‘maybe I was born in the wrong body’, becoming fanatical about that. The radical left

4 and the alt-right are both scrambling for an identity through group association, wherein it’s important to be exclusionary in order to maintain the integrity of the group and, therefore, the self. But the self is on shaky ground if it just exists by association. The use of memes in their hive, whether right or left, infects their worldview when they are browsing their group’s memes, slowly internalising this cruel and distorted way of looking at the self and others, conditioning mental habits that will make it difficult for them to live a happy life. A form of what psychologists are calling digital self-harm.

Conclusion

Memes are intended for repeated use by mass audiences, and as a result, they have become a tool for preserving an idea through replication within affinity spaces (Gee 2004 ). For 10 years the abrasive Pepe alongside with the wistful-looking Wojak have remained being memed, forming a dichotomy between cynicism and nihilism that permeates within the identity of young male of my generation. The exact result of putting young men in a post modern environment, where anonymity in the Internet, conditions a Dionysian identity. To end on the same optimistic note as the documentary, the we all know that feel bro meme offers a hopeful glimpse of community-building, demonstrating how groups can deploy images to address some knowable, perceptible facet of their identity in order to show support for each other. The dichotomy of the two memes functions as a synecdoche: a visual phrase used to represent a larger whole. In this case, it memetically refers to the pleasure and pain that comes from being connected online.

Bibliography

• Brown, K, 2020. Hypermodernity and Minoritarianism. • Burgess, J, 2008. All your chocolate rain are belong to us? Viral video, YouTube and the dynamics of participatory culture. In: Lovink G and Niederer S (eds) Video Vortex Reader: Responses to YouTube. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures. • Dawkins, R, 1976. The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press. • Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F., 1980. A Thousand Plateaus. • Gee, J.P, 2004 Situated Language and Learning: A Critique of Traditional Schooling. London: Routledge. • Knobel, M. & Lankshear, C., 2007. Online memes, affinities, and cultural production. New York: Peter Lang Publishing.

5 • McLeod, K., & Zimdars, M., 2020 Fake News: Understanding Media and Misinformation in the Digital Age. • McLuhan, M, 1964. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. • Milner, RM, 2012. The world made meme: discourse and identity in participatory media. Unpublished Dissertation, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS. • Milner, RM, 2013. Pop polyvocality: Internet memes, public participation, and the Occupy Wall Street movement. International Journal of Communication. • Miltner, K, 2014. There’s no place for lulz on LOLCats: the role of genre, gender, and group identity in the interpretation and enjoyment of an . First Monday. • Negal, A, 2017. Kill All Normies: Online Culture Wars from 4chan and Tumblr to Trump and the Alt-Right. • Nissenbaum, A. & Shifman, L., 2015. Internet memes as contested cultural capital: The case of 4chan’s /b/ board. New Media & Society. • Prensky, M, 2001. Digital Immigrants, Digital Natives. On the Horizon Article. • Shifman, L, 2012. An anatomy of a YouTube meme. New Media & Society. • Steyerl, H, 2013. The Wretched Of The Screen. New York: Sternberg Press.

Author Biography

Francesco Imbimbo presently is undertaking a BA at Ravensbourne University for Digital Film Production. Current personal research is on Platonism, and his research interest is on Memetics. He has published two short films inspired by memetics.

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