From Wojaks to the White House: Memetic Iconography and the Online Mainstreaming of Far-Right Political Rhetoric

Abstract

The rising prevalence of far-right rhetoric on mainstream social media sites poses an ever-increasing danger towards American society. This thesis explores one potential cause of that mainstreaming, that being the use of memetic iconography by both the public and political elites. Through an in-depth content analysis of one of the most prevalent memes used by the far-right today, the wojak, as well as a quantitative and qualitative analysis measuring the engagement surrounding tweets of several political elites, I show that a) memetic iconography is an integral part of the mainstreaming of far-right rhetoric due to its ability to normalize such content and b) political elites use memetic iconography to signal support to those with silent far-right preferences, emboldening them to express their views on mainstream social media sites. These findings have implications for theories on political persuasion, radicalization, political normalization, and network amplification.