1This article interrogates sensitive issues around the articulation between public space, media and image in a society at war, by analysing memes that circulated after the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. In war contexts, during which digital infrastructure is destroyed or malfunctioning, memes become “post-digital objects” (Wagener, 2022) and through “embodiment” take on new life in public urban space. “Held up,” “cited,” “shouted,” “chanted” and “enacted,” memes engage the body: an observation which led me to use the concept of “memetic performance” to interrogate the relationships between memes and corporality in a war context. Alongside “shocking images” of bodies worn out, mutilated and destroyed by war (Dymytrova, 2023), memetic performances use the body as an “affective mediator” and “medium for transmitting persuasive arguments” (Martin-Juchat, 2008, p. 87-88).
2Given the numerous definitions that exist of memes, we will adopt F. Jost’s proposition to “start from what users themselves call memes rather than an a priori definition” (Jost, 2022, p. 65). As for the concept of performance, it refers here to “a bodily enactment of a discourse which establishes a sensorial relationship between speaker and listener” (Prak-Derrington, 2021). The expression “memetic performances” therefore designates “exhibited” practices (Biet & Roques, 2013) and actions which “offer a spectacle” (Féral, 2013), by taking the form of “technographic” content (Paveau, 2017) and becoming objects for imitative reproduction in the online and offline universe.
3We will consider wartime memes as acts of language undertaken to have an effect on the other and prompt them to react in an affective Web dynamic (Alloing & Pierre, 2017) and in an agonistic framework where ideological opposition between players has a decisive role.
4Our research approach lies at the intersection of information and communication sciences, performance studies (Schechner, 2002) and the semio-pragmatic approach (Odin, 2011), attentive to the discursivity of images in public space (Veron, 1994). This theoretical and conceptual perspective is applied to multimodal materials in Ukrainian and Russian to analyse modes of signification and enunciative specificities of memetic performances.
5We present the methodology used and then through three case studies show how memetic performances engage the body as a temporary affective mediator. Thereafter we analyse memetic performances as spaces for producing collective identities, by operating a focus on vocality as a method for meme reproduction and circulation, to then decipher specific enunciation modes related specifically to war contexts.
- 1 I spent on average 2 to 4 hours per day on the Web and saved content that was widely shared. An obs (...)
- 2 According to a study by Texty.org.ua, a Ukrainian data journalism site, at the beginning of March, (...)
6This paper analyses a corpus of images and discourses collected during a phase of ethnographic observation (Hine, 2000) of the Ukrainian segment of the Web and social media platforms, mainly Facebook, YouTube and Telegram1 during the first three months of the Russian invasion, that is from February to June 2022. During that period there was a proliferation of memes.2
7We will focus on three series of memes, which through their representational and figurative properties correspond to what we have called “memetic performances” [tab. 1]. These three case studies were selected by crossing our corpus of images with a corpus of Ukrainian media discourses collected a posteriori (32 Ukrainian press articles published between February 2022 and February 2023) so as to objectify the production of meaning by memes and “neutralise” the effect of platforms on the corpus. Memes that were among the top 10 memes during the first year of war were selected, based on media discourse; these memes also engaged the body through the gesturality, vocality and emotions they elicited. Through their thematic appropriation and their visibility, the memes illustrate their capacity to create “affective communities” (Alloing & Pierre, 2017) and become part of public debate.
Table 1
Generic name
|
First appeared
|
Semiotic modes
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“Russian warship, go fuck yourself”
|
24/02/2022
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Sound recording, audiovisual remixes, still images, stamps, wall murals, road signs, spin-off products
|
“Enemy, you will get everything the witch says”
|
02/03/2022
|
Video, slogan, audiovisual remixes, still images, spin-off products
|
The Red Viburnum in the Meadow
|
27/02/2022
|
Music video, audiovisual remixes, still images, wall murals, spin-off products
|
Memetic performances analysed.
8The media discourses collected which accompany and transmit the memes studied here in public space can be considered intermediatic triviality. In effect, in the trajectory of a meme three steps can be distinguished:
-
traces of a “performance” documented by an identified or anonymous player which are shared on social media platforms and spark creative action;
-
creation or reproduction of images and memetic performances;
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materialisation of memes in urban public spaces in the form of posters, graffiti, wall murals, T-shirts, etc.
9These documented and mediatised steps participate in the constitution of a “memory reservoir” (Jost, 2022, p. 119) from which appropriation of the situation of war operates.
10The first series of memes, put under the generic title “Russian warship, go fuck yourself,” originates from an audio recording of the response of a Ukrainian border guard on Snake Island in the Black Sea to an order from Russian officers on the Moskva warship to surrender.3 Published online by A. Gerachtchenko, advisor to the Ukrainian Interior Minister, the episode was quickly reported by other institutions such as the Border Services, President Zelensky and Ukrainian and foreign media. The insult-phrase uttered in familiar language sparked a heated debate about its spelling4 and the ethics of using it in public space.5 At the same time, Ukrainians euphemised the phrase by a creating a new variant of the insult: “Do as the Russian warship!”
11The original phrase, in its textual form, was quickly incorporated into memesThe first creations were aerial shots of the island, with a graphic representation of the audio signal in reference to the event covered by the media [fig. 1]. Other images include graphic representations of the island’s lighthouse or the middle finger gesture in reference to the meaning of the verbal insult.6 Other images, such as snakes presented as fighters (a reference to the island’s name) or Russian military warships sinking were also created online. The latter theme became popular after the Moskva Russian warship was damaged by the Ukrainian army in April 2022. In March, the Ukrainian postal services launched a stamp design competition themed around the Snake Island episode. An image by Boris Groh won and was published. The design takes up graphic content from the memes, in particular a Ukrainian soldier making a phallic gesture at a Russian warship.
Figure 1
Example of the same “Russian warship, fuck off”7. Author: Valentyna Dymytrova.
Source: https://imgflip.com/memegenerator/386336619/Russian-warship-go-f-Yourself-version-2.
- 8 For example, Jockii Druce’s song, which used the phrase, made it to the top 10 of Apple Music Ukrai (...)
12The meme was replicated many times and in several variations; it was also materialised in public space by “texturizing” (Aiello, 2022) and by circulating in infra-ordinary, political and media discourses, in urban and social landscapes (road signs, advertising banners, posters, graffiti, walls, etc.) in both digital and printed formats (posters, board games, clothing, etc.) as well as in artistic production.8 The phrase was also displayed and chanted during demonstrations abroad against the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
13The circulation of the memes in public space was accompanied by contradictory information from the two adversaries. While the Ukrainian authorities announced the death of the Ukrainian defenders of the island and posthumously decorated them as “Heros of Ukraine,” the Russian Ministry of Defence announced that they had been captured and Russian media used the episode to denounce Ukrainian propaganda. By presenting memes as veritable information weapons and “political propaganda” tools (Ellul, 1990) in the fight for public opinion, the media discourse recognises the power of persuasion and the argumentative effectiveness particular to memetic performance. Through their gesturality and vocality, the memes from this series helped to rally an affective and critical community around the rejection of the political identity of the invader.
14The second series of memes labelled “Enemy, you will get everything the witch says” originates in another “documented performance,” a YouTube video showing the inhabitants of Konotop in northern Ukraine, trying to hold back Russian tanks.9 A female voice from the crowd shouts out to the invaders warning them that to come to Konotop where every second woman is a witch is dangerous, and prophesises that they will have erectile problems. The anonymous protagonist through her intervention reactivated a part of local and national cultural heritage. The figure of the witch is at the heart of the satirical fantasy novel The Witch of Konotop by Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnovianenko published in 1833. This classic of Ukrainian literature is on school curricula and has been adapted for theatre and cinema several times. The reference therefore drew quick reaction from Ukrainians inspiring a variety of memes [fig. 2], of artistic performances and calls for mystical rituals, as in the case of an esoteric products shop which called on witches to gather together on 31 March 2022 for “a ritual punishing the enemy of the Ukrainian people.”10
Figure 2
Example of a meme referencing the witch of Konotop. Creator unknown. Translation: The text says: “The witches of Konotop are at work. It will no longer rise.” The “it” assimilates the tanks cannon to the male sexual organ. This creative piece references the threat formulated by a Konotop inhabitant to Russian soldiers.
15The Ukrainian poet Ludmyla Gorova would go on to publish an online poem addressed to the invaders based on this anecdote and its meme adaptation. Titled “Enemy,” the poem went viral, was recited on social media, and put to music.
Sowing in thine eye,
Sowing in the night.
Thou shall get, my foe,
By the Witch’s word.
How many rye seeds
Went to holy soil,
Just as many times, foe,
Shall thou be destroyed11
16Angy Kreyda, an alt pop Ukrainian band did an artistic take of the poem and made a music video that was explicitly political, as evident in the speech that accompanied it on YouTube: “89 days of war! They have come to kill us, to kill everyone who lives on Ukrainian territory. So, women of all nationalities and faiths, prophesise against the evil that has arrived on Our Land!”12 Within a month, the video had clocked up more than 1 million views on YouTube and aided the circulation and reproduction of memes of this series, inspired graphic creation [fig. 3], audiovisual remixes of the video, online flash mobs and a range of spin-off products such as posters, calendars, printed clothing, literary and theatrical production.13
Figure 3
Example of a graphic creation on the Witch of Konotop theme.
Author: Victoriya Naumova @naviali.
17These memetic performances, imbued with political meaning and symbolic value, express an attachment to the performative quality of language. By repeating magic words that threaten the enemy, performers try to conquer their own fears, as well as bring justice and a return to better times, in the spirit of carnivalesque culture (Bakhtine, 1990) with its own particular vocabulary, both coarse and ambiguous.
18The third series of memes also has its origins in a “documented performance”: in a video shot with a smartphone in the empty streets of the capital, in front of the Saint Sophie Cathedral in Kyiv, Andriy Khlyvnyuk, the soloist from the band BoomBox, sang the patriotic march “The Red Viburnum in the Meadow” a cappella.14 The song is a seventeenth century Cossack song used in the Ukrainian struggle for independence, in particular in the early twentieth century.15
In the meadow, there a red kalyna, has bent down low,
For some reason, our glorious Ukraine, has been worried so.
And we’ll take that red kalyna and we’ll raise it up
And we, our glorious Ukraine, shall, hey hey cheer up and rejoice!16
- 17 The red viburnum bush is a national symbol of Ukraine. The resistance of its berries to cold symbol (...)
19The song metaphorically links the viburnum, or red kalyna,17 to Ukraine, expressing the desire to raise up the bush and thus support Ukraine.
- 18 One of the vestiges of the Kievan Rus’ era (tenth-eleventh century).
20Beyond the song’s patriotic nature and the symbolic performance location,18 the personal story of its singer, who cut short an American tour to enlist in the Ukrainian army, suggested a fusion between words and deed. Dressed in military fatigues, with an armband in the colours of the Ukrainian flag, and carrying a weapon, the singer embodied determination to resist the invader. In its physical dimension and its figurative staging, the body here becomes a political argument of an aesthetic nature.
21Khlyvnyuk’s performance had a memetic trajectory as can be seen with the following meme [fig. 4]: “Hey, are you sleeping?”—“Leave me alone”—“In the meadow, there a red kalyna, has bent down low”—“has bent down loooooooooww.” The brain in the cartoon recalls the patriotic song as performed by Khlyvnyuk: long repeated vowels being characteristic of his way of singing.
Figure 4
Meme around the theme of the red viburnum, 6 April 2022.
Author: Gadzilla. Source: https://gadzzilla.org/oj-u-luzi-cher.
22The song was taken up by ordinary citizens (passengers on a metro line, residents taking refuge in a bomb shelter, school children during break time, fans at a football match, children playing in a yard)19 as well as professional singers, both Ukrainian and international, notably The Kiffness, David Guetta and Pink Floyd. The song also appeared in video montages sung by key war figures, such as the dog Patron,20 mascot of the invasion, or fictive characters, like Bob the Sponge, and even by enemies, like Putin. Memetic performances are rendered static in iconic online memes…The memetic performances were rendered static in iconic online memes, as well as in the urban landscape (posters, murals, t-shirts, etc.). The affirmation of political identities in these creative remixes is affected by the recognition of symbolic systems proffered by the protagonists. Clothes in national colours, traditional wear, or symbols such as the flag expressed national belonging and support to the people of Ukraine.
23The registers used may vary greatly, from humoristic to sublime, but we note the importance of corporeality in the creation, uptake and circulation of the series of memes studied. For each series, the presence of an enunciator, a “man surprised, as much as possible, by his bursting spontaneity” (Jousse, 1978, p. 23), imposes itself to make the body both a medium for inscribing signs and a vector of communication. We exemplify this observation with a focus on vocality as a modality of reproduction and circulation that is specific to the three case studies.
24In the case of “Russian warship, go fuck yourself,” the enunciator uses an imperative, the phrase is an act of directive language whose illocutionary aim is to make one’s interlocutor undertake an action. In a situation in which the enunciator puts their life at risk expressing resolute refusal to surrender, the phrase is perceived as an expression of courage and of the will to resist and defend one’s country. The phrase circulated like a rallying cry to “unite against” the invader. Its uptake in diverse forms expressed public recognition and adherence to the political identity represented by the enunciator and their action which became performance.
25As in the two other cases analysed, literary and artistic expression contributed to the visibility and circulation of the theme in public space. Thus, O. Smilyanska’s poetry with its repetition of the cult-phrase “Russian warship, go fuck yourself” at the end of each stanza was used in many videos, both by theatre artists as well as ordinary citizens. This process of musicalizing the phrase, which acts as a refrain, transforms the enunciator into a co-enunciator who participates in a collective performative ritual founded on rejection of the enemy and their political identity.
26In the case of “Enemy, you will get everything the witch says,” both the phrase from the anonymous woman from Konotop and its literary uptake constitute expressive acts which reveal the affective and emotional state of the enunciators. These discourses aimed at the invader favour creative forms of expressing hatred over use of physical violence. They enact a negative identification, an identity of opposition by using argumentative rhetoric which underscores antagonism with the enemy.
27Several internet users who cited the poem like a mantra on social media or reproduced it taking inspiration from Angy Kreyda’s artistic performance were attempting to use sublimation to distance themselves from their real experience of war. Borrowing from magical registers, these performances aim to frighten and dissuade Russian soldiers from fighting. They condense representations of belonging to the Ukrainian nation and reject the enemy by taking up an identitarian rhetoric imbued with critical aggressivity.
28Lastly, the vocality of the “Red Viburnum in the Meadow” case is at the service of positive identification. The rhetoric here constitutes identity as a reference model capable of structuring a political ideal of self. As such, through the song ordinary performers express their political and national belonging. Beyond affirmation, the rhetoric also has a rallying function constructing a “unified body.” Unlike the original solo artistic performance, several creative remixes were collective performances, bringing together members of a family, pupils in a school, members of a sports club or military unit. Such memetic performances constitute communions, rallying the proponents of a same political culture by ensuring strong mediation of the social bonds.
29Table 2 below summarises the specific modes of enunciation observed in the memetic performances analysed using an approach of identity as symbolic mediation, expressing our belonging and our cultures (Dymytrova, 2011). The memetic performances constitute a symbolic space where political and cultural identities structure themselves according to specific logics, forms and modes, on the level of symbol, politics, imaginary and aesthetics.
Table 2
Memetic performance
|
“Russian warship, go fuck yourself”
|
“Enemy, you will get everything the witch says”
|
“The Red Viburnum in the Meadow”
|
Language act
|
Directive
|
Expressive
|
Expressive
|
Corporality
|
Vocality, gesturality
|
Vocality, gesturality
|
Vocality
|
Aesthetics of the representation
|
Carnival
|
Magic
|
Authenticity
|
Communication function
|
Insult
|
Curse
|
Affirmation
|
Persuasive argumentation
|
Rejection
|
Rejection
|
Belonging
|
Form of identification
|
Negative identification
|
Negative identification
|
Positive identification
|
Mode of structuring collective identity
|
“Unite against”
|
“Unite against”
|
“Unite with”
|
Identity rhetoric
|
Critical aggressivity
|
Critical aggressivity
|
Activism
|
Specific modes of enunciation.
30Endowed with strong identitarian power, memetic performances unite individuals sharing the same allegiance or political opinion, and position them vis-à-vis wider society. The performances stage both the individual body and the collective body, that of the nation, by materialising a “symbolic mediation of identity,” “the set of forms through which our identity can be both perceived and recognised by us, and shared and expressed by others” (Lamizet, 2002).
31Faced with the anguish of death in a war context, memetic performances try to release fear, anxiety and even anger and channel them towards artistic expression inscribed in ordinary life and in urban and rural landscapes. Through their humorous nature, they evoke the “survival humour” characteristic of Central Europe: a “philosophy of life which consists in deciding whether you should laugh when you are threatened by madness or destruction, to save common sense, and through that, save yourself and your community” (Nowicki, 2008, p. 79).
32Through their referential function, the memetic performances analysed are ways of discussing the current events of war and expressing political identity. In a context of expressive individualisation, or even expressivity (Allard, 2009) of the Internet, the body becomes “subject, object, medium, measure and matter” that the individual “questions, sublimes or subverts derisively to their will” (Ollier, 2013), and through this, constructs meaning of the present and reflects the awareness of cultural and political belonging.
33Far from being isolated creations, memetic performances resonate among themselves. They are forms of creative resistance and as such participate in the construction of a repertory of online collective action at the service of a “grassroots information mobilisation” (Cardon & Granjon, 2010) against the invader.