Disaster Humor and Internet Memes During the Coronavirus Pandemic on the Example of Two Instagram Profiles
Article Sidebar
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Anafora provides open access to all its content to support greater global exchange of knowledge. Articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction of the full texts of the journal’s articles and allows readers to use them for any other lawful purpose, without the author’s and the publisher’s permission, provided that the original work is properly cited.
Copyright for articles published in this journal is retained by the authors, with first publication rights granted to the journal (this applies to both the print and electronic issues). By virtue of their appearance in this open access journal, articles are free to use, with proper attribution.
Main Article Content
Abstract
The article discusses the issue of the humorous discourse of Internet memes that emerged in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Memes are studied within digital folklore as virtual surrogates of disaster jokes, the genre with which they have many similarities. They appeared immediately after the virus began spreading, thematizing the pandemic and new life situations caused by it, and are greatly influenced by media reports about the virus and its spreading. This article aims to analyze the humorous discourse of Internet memes, which is divided into four groups motivated by the way they approach the topic of the virus and the pandemic, and consequently they achieve a humorous effect compared to disaster jokes. The research is focused on internet memes posted on two Instagram profiles: eroGAG and Gospodar Pršljenova. The memes were posted at the beginning of the pandemic in Europe, in March and April 2020.