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From Pop cat to Bernie Sanders’ mittens, from the Capitol siege earlier this year to the GameStop Stonks action - since the beginning of the pandemic, memes have become much more than just infectuous jokes on the internet. Considering that many of us have centered on an online lifestyle, we need to reflect not just on form and content of these memes, but also on their infrastructure. We will look at the early beginnings of memes as cultural signifiers, asking whether they are really an invention of the 21st century. We’ll try to understand why certain me- mes go viral while others don’t and look at fundamental questions on authorship, community and right of ownership. Further, we will examine the close links between memes and politics as exemplified by the Cambridge Analytica controversy, the Black Lives Matter movement and the symbolism of political memeing.
