Politics often seems like cheerleading. The metaphor is apt, for cheerleading is about signaling and encouraging allegiance to a team. That’s what people mean when they say that politics is performative. Political claims are often signals—performances indicating commitment to a political identity, leader, or ideology.
One big reason why politics is so performative today is something that consumes our waking moments: social media. Social media is a signaling machine—straightforwardly and consciously designed to encourage quick, nonreflective emotional engagement. We “like” posts, clicking on “heart” symbols and emoticons symbolizing basic emotional reactions. We “win” at X or Facebook by hating on our enemies and conforming to the wishes of our cohort. We share posts without reading them because we know they make us seem informed or part of the team.
Politics online is a major part of contemporary political discourse, employing political experts and consultants the world over, with easily shareable content encouraged and produced by billions of campaign advertising dollars.
There is probably no single vehicle more suited to performative politics than the humble political meme. Such memes are fun—often hilarious. They allow us to mock those folks on the other side. Who doesn’t love them?
But what are they for, exactly? What’s the point of a political meme?
What are political memes?
One thought is that political memes are meant to spread information—true or false. And indeed, political memes are frequently weaponized to spread hate, propaganda, and false information about political opponents. Memes are useful for such purposes for several fairly well-known reasons.
First, making and sharing memes is creative because they allow for endless variation and tailoring to specific communities and subcommunities. That room for variation also means that participating in the memesphere allows us to feel we are part of something larger than ourselves—like we are in on the “joke.”
Second, memes are shared and reshared without attribution, which gives the impression that they are author-less, or “just there.” As Joan Donovan has noted, “Unmoored from the trappings of an author’s reputation or intention, they become the collective property of the culture.” As a result, “no one has to answer for transgressive or hateful ideas” (2019).
Third, political memes are often funny. Humor, outrage, and cuteness travel fast on the internet. Moreover, those sharing the meme can always say they are “just joking.” They aren’t, they might insist, intending to harm anyone. This provides a ready-made barrier against criticism of otherwise hateful speech.
Can sharing memes be called cheerleading?
So, memes are often used to spread information and disinformation. But to leave it at that would be to miss a big part of how they function—as signals or performances. So when sharing a meme, it is less important whether you really believe the information it contains—after all, it is not really clear that most memes contain any specific “information” at all. What’s important is that you’re signaling your allegiance to your team—what’s important is that you are cheering them on.
Political memes don’t aim to change minds. They aim to confirm your identity and make you feel part of the team. That doesn’t make them necessarily bad; and it certainly makes them useful. What’s dangerous is not the meme itself, but our tendency to tell ourselves that by sharing one we are engaged in reflective political conversation.
