How Ukraine is winning the meme-war.
Disclaimer: I am completely against this horrible war and this article is not meant to make light of it. I’m writing this because I’ve found it interesting the way Ukraine has portrayed itself on social media.
Ukraine and Russia both have official Twitter accounts which are where they’re battling online — and the tactics are night-and-day.
A lot is being said about (dis)information during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Russia has used disinformation for a long time, even inventing the term (dezinformatsiya) and establishing a ‘special disinformation office’ in 1923. They have the pedigree.
However, the internet is the new battleground and Russia is the forerunner — from interfering with the 2016 US election to denying Syrian leader Bashar Al-Assad used chemical weapons on Syrians. But, Ukraine isn’t lagging behind. They’ve repurposed videos from the 2014 annexation of Crimea and ripped footage from a video game to fight back. So, not only is Ukraine defending their country with weapons, but also with disinformation and memes.
Russia is currently using it’s official twitter account to celebrate the country — posting about Russian accomplishments or their country’s scenery.
This isn’t wholly strange though and there are lots of government-run twitter accounts that do the same. However, when your timeline completely ignores that you’ve started a war (no mention as of 17.10.2022), it’s very strange. Sure, we’re used to our government not telling us the whole truth and trying to portray everything as positive, but this is surreal, especially as it’s such a stark contrast to the other side of the war, Ukraine, and their twitter account.
They’re memein’.
They’re making light of their own situation:
They’re comparing Putin to Hitler:
and they’re asking what will happen first, Ukraine shooting down 100 Russian jets or being able to get 300 rubles for $1USD?
What I find most 2k22 about this whole this is that 1. We’re not used to government-run twitter accounts posting memes 2. We’re not used to government-run twitter accounts posting memes while being at war and 3. We’re not used to government-run twitter accounts posting memes about said war.
Someone high up knows the power of social media and they know that content can be shared in a heartbeat and opinions can be swayed by a tweet. And, even though, in the court of public opinion, the vast majority of people on earth are against this war, being able to laugh at yourself makes you more human, especially when the other side is not making any mention of what they’re doing.
And being human is very important. In my opinion, we’re desensitised to battlefield footage at this point- hearing gunshots and seeing explosions don’t fill us with fear. It’s hard to relate to and it’s almost as if the people in the footage don’t seem real. But what is more real and more human than making a joke? (If you need evidence of this, check this Netflix special, written by bots.)
According to a study by Stanford University, in the face of anxiety and hurt, comedy is a more effective coping strategy than solemnity. The University of Western Ontario also did a study showing that having a good sense of humour leads to increased optimism which boosts our resiliency and helps us to develop the ability to deal with adversity. There is a human need to laugh and that’s what has fascinated me about these meme wars.
You see, as soon as news breaks, my timeline is filled with relevant, topical memes. But how often are the memes made by the parties involved? If someone told you 10 years ago that Nigerians were making anti-Boko Haram trollface comics, it would have seemed surreal, no? And to be honest, we haven’t really seen it before, even in this meme-filled interconnected world we live in.
The alt-right has perhaps been the best at weaponising memes, with their biggest accomplishment being helping Donald Trump to the US Presidency in 2016. The blueprint is to attack your opposition — turn them into the bad guys and attack what they stand for and how they think. So, it’s interesting to see Ukraine using itself as the butt of some of its memes.
But there is definite value in it —According to stoics, self-deprecation is meant to remove the sting from an insult, but also frustrate the insulter — the fact that their insult hasn’t caused hurt makes it less likely they’ll try to upset the person like that again.
That’s the idea anyway, but by saying that, I’m obviously not claiming that if Ukraine just meme hard enough, Vladimir Putin will feel so silly that he’ll withdraw Russia’s troops. However, we know this war has gone on longer than Putin thought it would and I’m sure he, his top brass and especially his soldiers have seen themselves being laughed at. We may never know the impact these memes have had on the real war, but Ukraine is definitely winning the meme war.
— — — — —
