Memetic commenting: Armenian curses and the Twitter theatre of Trump’s deselection

On 7 November 2020, strange things were happening in the comments to @realDonaldTrump’s
tweet erroneously arguing that he had won the US presidential election, ‘BY A LOT’. Posting
quote tweets and replies in Armenian in tandem with ‘cursed images’, memes, and creepypasta,
users engaged in a spam-like trollish intervention, even as Twitter kept removing the said content
in real time. Exploring this online incident through various analytical techniques, this article first
attends to absurdity and ephemerality within the polarized social media event. Second, it makes an
argument for the productivity of digital methods in cultural studies inquiry aiming to understand
the temporal, contextual, and infrastructural aspects of memetic commenting. Third, by focusing
on the social (media) theatre of Armenian curses, we make a case for the analytical importance of
studying materials deemed niche and anomalous in networked exchanges.

Kokoelmat

Rinnakkaistallenteet [29337]