Finley Thomas, Jigyasa Maloo, Mercedes Scheible, Agathe Labadi, Joe Everest, Amelia Bell, NORTHCOM and Extremism Teams
Alice Cian, Clémence Van Damme, Editor; Jennifer Loy, Chief Editor
September 25, 2024
Social Media[1]
Introduction
Political memes have evolved into an important influence in shaping public discourse, especially during election cycles. By employing humor, satire, and sarcasm, they simplify complex political issues, making them more accessible to a wider audience and facilitating broader engagement with political messages. As the 2024 US presidential election approaches, the influence of memes in shaping voter opinions is becoming increasingly evident. Memes serve both as tools for persuasion and as vehicles for spreading misinformation and disinformation, likely exacerbating societal divisions. The role of social media platforms has been significant in creating, posting, viewing, and sharing memes, leveraged across the political spectrum to influence American voters from different socio-political and racial backgrounds. In today’s social media landscape, as the political climate intensifies ahead of the upcoming elections, it is crucial to understand how memes impact political communication and public perceptions of elections.
Summary
Memes have emerged as a powerful communication medium, conveying ideas and opinions through humor, satire, and sarcasm while intensifying emotional appeal. Memes are images or short videos accompanied by text or sound actively disseminated on social media platforms.[2] When the focus is on socio-political topics, they are referred to as political memes.[3] The meme culture propels online users to fully immerse themselves in the meme landscape by actively sharing, emulating, and endorsing the content.[4] Memes became a commonly used tool during political campaigning around 2010, along with the rise of social media platforms. Their ability to simplify complex issues into engaging content helped engage broader audiences more effectively. During the 2016 US presidential election, social media platforms saw a surge in the dissemination of memes. Some critics argued that “memes and related forms of Internet humor have now become powerful, even decisive, forces in contemporary political life.”[5] Previous elections have demonstrated how pop culture and cartoon references, originally non-political visuals, became a means to express extreme political views, spreading disinformation and deepening polarization among American voters. Supporters across the political spectrum leveraged memes such as “Pepe the Frog,”[6] “Yes Chad,”[7] and “Crying Wojak”[8] to share their views and in some instances to spread conspiracy theories such as Pizzagate and Deep, making the persuasive nature of memes evident.
Memes became a central tool in shaping political discourse ahead of the current elections. US politicians, supporters, and adversaries have embraced memes, especially AI-generated ones to create politically charged content, to shape political narratives. After the assassination attempt on Trump in July 2024, memes of Trump raising his fist in the air after the shooting became viral. On Truth Social, memes were posted suggesting conspiracies that “President Biden or Hillary Clinton was behind the attack at the rally.”[9] Following the September 10 presidential debate, viral memes were embraced by both political camps, with some using them mockingly and others adopting them to advance narratives regarding immigration. Two of the most viral meme topics included: Trump's claims about Haitians eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, and his response to Harris' support to gender transition surgery to state inmates, which Trump rephrased as "transgender operations on illegal aliens who are in prison."[10] Trump and Harris have both adopted memes as a part of their political campaigns to engage with voters. This includes Harris using “coconut tree”[11] and “brat summer”[12] memes and Trump’s mugshot picture going viral with the slogan “Never Surrender.”[13] High-profile figures have also embraced the dissemination of political memes to influence the narratives surrounding the upcoming US elections, including Twitter owner Elon Musk reposting a meme from Trump’s Truth Social account featuring a cat holding a campaign sign that reads “Kamala hates me.”[14] The surge of political memes from candidates and social media users has also become a way to quickly spread political and social discontent.[15] Issues most likely to be covered as memes are immigration and border control, abortion, feminism, economic crisis, climate change, political scandals and investigations, war in Ukraine, Israel/Palestine, and electoral fraud.[16]
Memes with racist and hateful connotations are prominent among extreme right groups from fringe social media platforms such as Gab, 4chan, 8chan, and Parler, impacting the larger meme ecosystem. Political memes from niche platforms make their way to mainstream sites, “which supports claims that memes might be used to enhance or harm politicians’ public images.”[17] A notable case would be “Pepe the Frog”[18] meme, originating from a comic series in 2005 turned mascot of extreme-right ideology. Pepe gained attraction on fringe platforms such as 4chan,[19] where users put the character in a variety of contexts with racist, antisemitic, and white supremacist connotations. During the 2016 Presidential election, Trump retweeted a Pepe representation styled with his hair, associated with a video called, “You Can’t Stump the Trump”[20], and soon became a part of Trump’s presidential campaign. The association of Pepe with Trump solidified the character’s position in the political meme ecosystem and Pepe the Frog meme evolved adapting to different contexts as it transitioned from fringe to mainstream platforms.
A total of 300 million social media users are active in 2024 in the US, an increase from 268 million in 2020.[21] US adults regularly consume news from different social media platforms. According to the recent Pew Research Center report, YouTube (83%) is the most widely used social media platform among US adults, followed by Facebook (68%), while the user base of TikTok saw an increase of 33% from 21% in 2021.[22] News consumption is prevalent across all mainstream social media platforms among US adults. With X (formerly Twitter) users about 59% consume news regularly from the platform[23] and news is “a major or minor reason they use the platform”[24] to keep up with political issues. A majority of users on TikTok, X, Facebook, and Instagram encounter opinion or humor-based content about current news/events through their algorithm more frequently than news articles or breaking news.[25] Among US teens YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram remain widely popular social media platforms,[26] and about 56% of teens consume political news from social media more than traditional news sources.[27] As statistics underline the extensive use of social media as a news source, the role of mainstream social media will be influential in creating, posting, viewing, and sharing memes among American voters in light of the 2024 elections.
The social media activity around the 2024 US presidential elections is making evident how the lack of specific content regulation on social media platforms allows harmful content to spread unchecked. Social media users share false narratives spreading dis- and misinformation without content regulation and supervision.[28] The cut of outsourced moderators in November 2024 and the dismantlement of X’s Trust and Safety advisory group in December 2022 have allowed X’s users to spread hate, misinformation, and illegal content on the platform. Following Elon Musk's new standards to control misinformation on X and legal battles with the Biden administration to silence certain political views,[29] some social media platforms changed their tactics to control election interference. Meta is improving its policies on AI-generated content by labeling images, audio, and videos when AI is detected on ads and posts, and updating its elections-related policies.[30] TikTok plans to provide information on rightful behaviors, election data, and best practices to spot misinformation and harmful content.[31] Despite TikTok’s plan, US authorities remain concerned about ties to the Chinese government and the potential for data collection, which pose risks to national security.[32]
Analysis
Widely accepted as one of the biggest drivers of opinion influence and polarization, politically charged memes will very likely be created and instrumentalized to undermine political candidates. Their ability to distill complex issues into easily digestible, emotionally charged content will likely make them highly effective in shaping public perception. Social media users, political actors, and extremist groups will very likely exploit political memes by crafting content that targets opponents with misleading or false information. The viral nature of memes will almost certainly accelerate their spread, very likely making it difficult for candidates to counteract the damage. As a result, these politically charged memes will likely contribute to a more polarized and contentious election environment.
Memes from previous elections will very likely resurface in the lead-up to the 2024 election. Familiar narratives such as immigration and electoral fraud will very likely create a sense of continuity among the users. Memes will almost certainly reinforce previously established biases, further deepening existing political divides. Extremist groups from across the political spectrum will very likely capitalize on the political division and polarization by adapting older memes with new content tailored to current events, making them relevant to this election’s context. This strategy will likely increase the reach and impact of disinformation, as users almost certainly feel more inclined to engage with content that feels familiar.
American voters from different socio-economic and racial backgrounds will very likely have exposure to targeted and differentiated memes in the lead-up to the election. These memes will almost certainly leverage specific cultural, economic, social, and political concerns unique to each group, very likely making them more effective in shaping opinions. Political actors and extremist groups will very likely use this strategy to deepen divisions along racial and class lines, heightening polarization in an attempt to persuade and sway voters. Higher polarization will very likely affect minorities, likely leading to targeted attacks online in the form of hate speech, trolling, and offline acts of violence.
AI-generated memes will very likely flood social media, very likely due to the overabundance of disinformation on various platforms. It will very likely generate false claims about presidential candidates and polarizing views on domestic issues important to American voters. AI-generated memes will likely be difficult to detect due to their hyperrealistic features, exploiting algorithms, rapid creation, and dissemination. The speed and scale at which AI-generated memes spread will almost certainly overwhelm fact-checking efforts. This will very likely make it difficult to distinguish between genuine and fabricated content and very likely contribute to public confusion and mistrust. Distrust of fact-checking services or tools on social media platforms will likely reduce their efficacy.
Online actors will likely exploit politically charged memes as a vehicle for extremism and political discontent, very likely leveraging their viral appeal and emotional resonance in the lead-up to and following the 2024 US presidential election. Private chat rooms, encrypted channels, and closed groups will very likely be a breeding ground for producing memes that manipulate political grievances and amplify divisive narratives. The production of such memes is likely to increase polarization within the electorate and very likely primarily affect minorities. The rapid spread of these memes on social media platforms makes it difficult for content moderators to counter extremist messages, very likely heightening the risk of radicalization among susceptible users. Memes created by political extremists and spread by mainstream social media users likely lend legitimacy to those ideas, disseminating propaganda to a casual audience and likely radicalizing more individuals.
Recommendations
The Counterterrorism Group (CTG) recommends that social media platforms develop and promote positive, fact-based counter-narratives to mitigate the influence of misleading memes.
Social media companies should adopt measures to identify and mitigate the dissemination of potentially extremist memes on their platforms. Content moderators should analyze and control radical, polarizing, or inflammatory memes to protect vulnerable communities.
Social media companies should flag and add a disclaimer when AI-generated images are posted, ensuring the users are aware of the images' AI creation and helping to prevent the spread of misinformation.
Social media companies should collaborate with government agencies, such as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), to monitor election-related extremist content on social media, especially fringe platforms, such as Gab, 4chan, 8chan and Parler, to maintain electoral integrity.
Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) should gather publicly accessible records and information on extremist content and memes to make them more readily identifiable by the public.
Social media users should be cautious about what they believe and share, carefully assessing the sources and accuracy of the content they come across to avoid the spread of misinformation in the lead-up to the US election.
Social media users should utilize social media reporting tools to flag potentially harmful or misleading content.
American voters should use credible news sources to get political information during election season and fact-check information from unverified sources on social media.
[1] Social Media, generated by a third party database (Created by AI),
[2] On the Evolution of (Hateful) Memes by Means of Multimodal Contrastive Learning, Proceedings - 44th IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, 2023, https://pure.tudelft.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/157631158/On_the_Evolution_of_Hateful_Memes_by_Means_of_Multimodal_Contrastive_Learning.pdf
[3] It’s obviously funny to be a meme: Viewing, sharing, & creating memes for political entertainment & observation, The Journal of Social Media in Society, 2022, https://thejsms.org/index.php/JSMS/article/view/851
[4] Ibid
[5] Dildoshops, Gritty, and Bernie’s Mittens: The Framing of American Politics Through Pop Cultural Memes, New Horizons in English Studies, 2021, https://journals.umcs.pl/nh/article/view/12338
[6] Pepe the Frog Meme was repeatedly shared by the Alt-Right movement who supported Donald Trump during the 2016 US presidential election, and was added to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL)'s database of hate symbols. Pepe the Frog meme branded a 'hate symbol', BBC, September 2016, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-37493165
[7] Yes Chad depicts a blonde, blue-eyed Nordic figure with neutral expression, accompanied by the caption "yes". Memes, Radicalisation, and the Promotion of Violence on Chan Sites, King College London, June 2021, https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/150708977/2021icwsm_memes.pdf
[8] Crying Wojak Meme was shared by Trump right supporters to express sadness and frustration. Crying Wojak, Know Your Meme, n.d., https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/crying-wojak
[9] After Trump Attack, Conspiracy Theories Spring Up on Truth Social, The New York Times, July 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/14/us/politics/trump-shooting-conspiracy-theories-truth-social.html
[10] A look at Trump's 'transgender operations on illegal aliens' debate claim, ABC, September 2024, https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trumps-transgender-operations-illegal-aliens-debate-claim/story?id=113584635
[11] Coconut tree Meme is a reference to Harris’s speech from May 2023, got traction after Biden’s withdrawal by her supporters. The Kamala Harris coconut tree meme, explained as best we can, NPR, July 2024, https://www.npr.org/2024/07/25/g-s1-13327/kamala-harris-coconut-tree-meme-context-unburdened-in-the-context
[12] Brat summer meme is reference to the word ‘brat’ featured in Charli XCX’s neon green album, embraced by Harris’s campaign. The internet's obsession with "brat summer" has reached Tim Kaine, Axios, July 2024, https://www.axios.com/local/richmond/2024/07/24/brat-summer-charli-xcx-tim-kaine
[13] US elections 2024: 10 Trump vs Kamala Harris memes you can't miss, Times of India, August 2024, https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/us-elections-2024-10-trump-vs-kamala-harris-memes-you-cant-miss/photostory/112799037.cms?picid=112803776
[14] After Trump Attack, Conspiracy Theories Spring Up on Truth Social, The New York Times, July 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/14/us/politics/trump-shooting-conspiracy-theories-truth-social.html
[15] The politics of memes: How Biden and Trump are fighting each other on the internet, AP News, June 2024, https://apnews.com/article/biden-trump-dark-brandon-memes-2024-election-2e31e2347d1045babf1229fe210dddf5
[16] In Tied Presidential Race, Harris and Trump Have Contrasting Strengths, Weaknesses, Pew Research Center, September 2024, https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/09/09/issues-and-the-2024-election/
[17] On the Origins of Memes by Means of Fringe Web Communities, Proceedings of the Internet Measurement Conference, 2018, https://conferences.sigcomm.org/imc/2018/papers/imc18-final102.pdf
[18] The evolution of the Pepe the Frog meme, Chatham House, March 2023, https://www.chathamhouse.org/publications/the-world-today/2023-04/evolution-pepe-frog-meme
[19] Pepe the Frog Meme Listed as a Hate Symbol, New York Times, September 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/28/us/pepe-the-frog-is-listed-as-a-hate-symbol-by-the-anti-defamation-league.html
[20] How a group of anonymous keyboard commandos conquered the internet for Donald Trump—and plans to deliver Europe to the far right, Politico, March/April 2017, https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/03/memes-4chan-trump-supporters-trolls-internet-214856/
[21] Number of social media users in the United States from 2020 to 2029(in millions), Statista, August 2024, https://www.statista.com/statistics/278409/number-of-social-network-users-in-the-united-states/
[22] Americans’ Social Media Use, Pew Research Center, January 2024, https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2024/01/31/americans-social-media-use/
[23] Social Media and News Fact Sheet, Pew Research Center, September 2024, https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/fact-sheet/social-media-and-news-fact-sheet/
[24] How Americans Get News on TikTok, X, Facebook and Instagram, Pew Research Center, June 2024, https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2024/06/12/how-americans-get-news-on-tiktok-x-facebook-and-instagram/
[25] Ibid
[26] Teens, Social Media and Technology 2023, Pew Research Center, December 2023, https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2023/12/11/teens-social-media-and-technology-2023/
[27] 6 trends for political media ahead of the 2024 US Presidential Election, GWI., September 2024, https://blog.gwi.com/trends/political-media/
[28] Disinformation poses an unprecedented threat in 2024 — and the U.S. is less ready than ever, NBC, January 2024, https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/misinformation/disinformation-unprecedented-threat-2024-election-rcna134290
[29] Ibid
[30] How Meta Is Planning for Elections in 2024, Meta, November 2023, https://about.fb.com/news/2023/11/how-meta-is-planning-for-elections-in-2024/
[31] Continuing to protect the integrity of TikTok through the US elections, TikTok, September 2024, https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/continuing-to-protect-the-integrity-of-tiktok-through-the-us-elections
[32] Despite security concerns, TikTok still plays key role in 2024 race, VOA, August 2024, https://www.voanews.com/a/despite-security-concerns-tiktok-still-plays-key-role-2024-race-/7731015.html
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