Month: October 2020

Pepe the Frog started life as an anthropomorphic webcomic character and morphed into a symbol for the alt-right over the course of a few years [1].  This was a gradual shift, and one that was largely in part due to its status as a meme being used as a gateway to spread right-wing ideology.

Benjamin Burroughs argues that memes, especially in the 2016 election cycle, were used as a “stitching device” for ideology [2].  This means that, as memes were under the same fair use act as parody pieces, they weren’t under the same level of scrutiny for presenting the truth as an information piece would be. Trump supporters and agents working for Trump could spread his message with a level of “plausible deniability”, and therefore circumvent the kind of criticism that would de-legitimize campaign ads which run the same message because they could simply argue it was done for comedic effect.

The ‘Pepe Trump’ meme was a popular version of this meme that kicked off the association between Trump, the alt-right and Pepe – with the then-Presidential candidate retweeting a video featuring the meme in 2015 [3]. From there, the links between Pepe and the right just kept growing – with more Conservatives being encouraged to make variations of Pepe with values they aligned with. This resulted in a simple cartoon frog acting as a launching pad for ideological warfare taking place on social media.

The most prominent example of this was when the Alt-Right co-opted Pepe for their own cause, and started using him to spread anti-Semitic and racist rhetoric under the guise of parody. Due to the ‘plausible deniability’ of memes, these images wouldn’t be taken down as hate speech as easily, and therefore played a role in indoctrinating more young members into their ideology. This resulted in Pepe being labelled a “symbol associated with white supremacy” from Trump’s political opposition of Hilary Clinton [4].

Pepe’s creator, Matt Furie, frequently condemned this use of his character, to the point where he filed a copyright infringement case against InfoWars for using his IP to promote their causes. This didn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things, as it was far too late to reclaim the perception that had already been set for the character.

On the bright side, this isn’t the only connotation that Pepe inspires around the world. During the recent Hong Kong protests, the character was used as a symbol of resistance to totalitarianism [5]. In contrast to his response to the Western co-opting of his IP, Furie called this example “great news! Pepe for the people!”

Perhaps that’s the power of memes. Something as simple as an image of a humanoid frog can inspire so much passion from both sides based on which ideology it represents.

Sources:
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/29/pepe-the-frog-alt-right-mascot-racist-anti-semitic
[2] Fake Memetics: Political Rhetoric and Circulation in Political Campaigns – Benjamin Burroughs
[3] http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/10/20/4chan-4-trump.html
[4] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-pepe-frog-instagram-breitbart-white-supremacist-alex-jones-milo-yiannopoulus-a7240581.html?
[5] https://knowyourmeme.com/editorials/in-the-media/activists-adopt-pepe-memes-in-hong-kong-protests

What defines the public sphere? What factors need to be considered before labelling any discussion forum as being “the” public sphere?

If we ask Jürgen Habermas, one of the defining architects on public sphere theory, it’s composed of private people gathered together as a public entity and articulating the needs of society with the state. Sounds simple enough, and modern day venues such as Twitter should, in theory, ascribe close enough to those ideals to be considered a public sphere. In practice, however, it’s a little more complicated.

A lot of the factors that Habermas laid out in regards to the success of public spheres feel idealistic at best, and outright naive at worst. There needs to be a great extent of access to the sphere, as close to universal as possible. Except that… universal access is impossible. Even something like Twitter, which feels like a slam-dunk for Habermas’ criteria, requires access to new technology and the internet – which not all Americans have access to, with the latter not being used by upwards of 10% of the population [1]. This becomes an even bigger issue in Less Economically Developed Countries, where the internet is less accessible and forums such as Twitter are the only venues to spread ideas about bettering their respective societies. This is especially bad in countries where freedom of press is an issue, such as China or Iran, and there’s no alternate to turn to.

Another issue that makes Habermas’ definition incompatible with modern social media platforms is the idea of rejecting a hierarchy. While it could be argued that Twitter doesn’t have a set hierarchy per say, and that all users have their voices heard at an equal footing, functions such as verification badges give greater validity to some voices over others. Additionally, follower count can only further this division, as users with less followers get a smaller window with which to spread their ideas compared to bigger accounts. Habermas’ also argued that a degree of autonomy is necessary for these spheres to be a success, but Twitter’s nature of being a private company goes against this idea – if you violate the TOS you’re immediately banned from the site, which some view as a blanket statement to silence Conservative voices.

Finally, Habermas claimed that quality of participation was vital for a venue to be considered a public sphere, and you just need to skim through your own twitter timeline to see that that’s not the case at all. Even beyond the 280 character limit restricting nuance in the ideas being spread, the surplus of bots on the site ensure that there the discourse on the server remains disruptive and reductive. Additionally, “quality of participation” is such an intrinsically subjective statement that it’s nearly impossible to define it without resorting to simply gatekeeping conversations to keep out those that you don’t agree with.

Ultimately, Habermas’ utopian worldview on what a public sphere should be feels overly idealized, and doesn’t consider the differences in people and the world around us. Twitter is, by all accounts, a contemporary public sphere – and recent events such as the Arab spring and the revitalization of the Black Lives Matter movement only further cement its status as such. Our perception of what is and isn’t a public sphere should reflect the world we live in, and recognize the increasing social complexity we experience today. A more fragmented public means that we need to adapt with the times, so perhaps we need new ideals with which to define what constitutes as a public sphere.

Sources:
[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/04/22/some-americans-dont-use-the-internet-who-are-they/