The Mainstreaming of Political Memes Online<br />The political meme — text over an image, sometimes short videos or digital clip art meant to spread<br />and be imitated — is often a guttural, simple message couched in humor, like the doctored video from September of Hillary Clinton being hit with his golf ball.<br />By Nellie Bowles FEB. 9, 2018<br />Political memes have gone mainstream as the distance between the White House and subcultures like 4Chan has closed.<br />President Trump has frequently retweeted his fans’ meme work, #MeToo jumped from social media to every workplace,<br />and political campaigns started to invest in the form more seriously.<br />By Mike Isaac FEB. 9, 2018<br />It’s easy to tell when you’ve nailed a good tweet — just watch the likes and retweets pile up as the post goes viral.<br />A message, an Instagram post, a tweet — some bit of digital effluvia has come in,<br />and it’s right there, promising a brief but necessary hit of connection.<br />The defining narrative of our online moment concerns the decline of text, and the exploding reach and power of audio and video.<br />The distance between the White House and subcultures like 4Chan has closed.<br />The distance between the White House and subcultures like 4Chan have closed.<br />If you probe those currents and look ahead to the coming year online, one truth becomes clear.
