Stonks/Lauren Mitchell

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 Since its conception, the Stonks meme encapsulates the absurdist humor and outlook of a generation that is rife with uncertainty. With the template first published to a Facebook group in 2017, then later used across various social media platforms such as Youtube, Imgur and Reddit, the meme has only recently gained more popularity and interaction with more audiences through Twitter this spring1. According to Know Your Meme (2019), the meme was originally used to make self-deprecating jokes for  “poor financial decisions”. Aesthetically, the template hosts a faceless figure imposed upon a stock image popular in other memes (e.g., Helth, Shef) with the overexaggerated misspelling of certain professions which aligns with, as Batrich claims, as the “image macro” that combines “text and image via repetition and difference”2. This allows for easy reproduction of the meme - through simply reposting or using as a reaction, updating the meme to feature pop-culture references or work in conjunction with trending news, or expanding upon the original humor to completely alter the understanding of the meme. 

 Today, the meme can be seen being adapted to the macro-scale attack on class issues and health issues. This fits the contextual requirement of memes surrounding spectatorship that Batrich discusses in his essay of memes through building upon Kant’s belief that “their spectatorship is not completely dispassionate, but a form of ‘inactive delight’ that is simultaneously ‘sympathy that borders almost on enthusiasm.’”. Through a shared struggle of a pandemic, an ever-widening gap based in class inequality, and a contentious presidential election occurring in the United States, the Stonk meme is one of many (e.g., “Eat the Rich”, Lizard People) that uses satire through the means of mocking and placing seemingly empty threats to oppressive institutions and influential figures. 

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 Stonks. (2019). In Know Your Meme. Retrieved from https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1499853-stonks

2 Bratich, J. (2014). Occupy All the Dispositifs: Memes, Media Ecologies, and Emergent Bodies Politic. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 11(1), p. 65 doi:10.1080/14791420.2013.827351

Comments

  1. RosanaOctober 14, 2020 at 10:55 PM

    this is a great entry Lauren. It is true that in times of crisis collective forms of humor seem to bourgeon, and memes are the digital prank to the absurdities of everyday life. You have encapsulated nicely here how memes work: the evolution, re-appropriation and mutation of a semiotic core that remains the same across the meme history, but that as the meme evolves, produces multiple versions with multiple meanings that clash agains each other. What I love is how memes have become a whole way of communication through humor. As you suggest, those "seemingly empty threads" are actually shaping politics.

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