‘Neo-Nazis Have Stolen Our Memes’: Making Sense of Extreme Memes

Abstract

In addition to using new modes of communication made possible by the internet, extreme political groups are also adopting innovative styles common to internet culture. Internet memes are texts that are easily shared—funny and laced with dense symbolism. However, what we are currently used to thinking of as internet memes are a partial departure from the original description of a meme as a cultural replicator. This chapter charts the development of memes, beginning with their use in evolutionary biology and proceeding to their appropriation to describe content traded on social networks by extreme political activists. The primary aim of this chapter is to serve as something of a guide to policy-makers and practitioners who are required to make sense of memes, either in tracking developments within extremist circles or as part of investigations. This chapter also makes the case that extremist memes as we currently understand them are potentially poor cultural replicators, relying too much on insider humour and prior knowledge to replicate ideas in the uninitiated. Rather than acting as persuasive tools for reprogramming cultural norms as suggested by some activists, memes are better suited to deepening involvement among already committed activists and, in some situations, raising awareness of the existence of a movement as was the case recently with the extreme right alt-right network.