A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal
Memetic commenting: Armenian curses and the Twitter theatre of Trump’s deselection
Authors: Pilipets Elena, Paasonen Susanna
Publisher: SAGE
Publication year: 2024
Journal: International Journal of Cultural Studies
Volume: 27
Issue: 3
First page : 302
Last page: 322
ISSN: 1367-8779
eISSN: 1460-356X
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/13678779231220397
Web address : https://doi.org/10.1177/13678779231220397
Self-archived copy’s web address: https://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/380853597
On 7 November 2020, strange things were happening in the comments to @realDonaldTrump’s
tweet erroneously arguing that he had won the US presidential election, ‘BY A LOT’. Posting
quote tweets and replies in Armenian in tandem with ‘cursed images’, memes, and creepypasta,
users engaged in a spam-like trollish intervention, even as Twitter kept removing the said content
in real time. Exploring this online incident through various analytical techniques, this article first
attends to absurdity and ephemerality within the polarized social media event. Second, it makes an
argument for the productivity of digital methods in cultural studies inquiry aiming to understand
the temporal, contextual, and infrastructural aspects of memetic commenting. Third, by focusing
on the social (media) theatre of Armenian curses, we make a case for the analytical importance of
studying materials deemed niche and anomalous in networked exchanges.
Downloadable publication This is an electronic reprint of the original article. |