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Notes -
Academia vs. racist memes
A new paper in Evolutionary Human Sciences has been making rounds.
Memeing Scientific Racism: The Digital Reframing of Racialist Ideologies – “examines how racialised memes circulating on X revive scientific racism”.
The most intriguing feature of the paper is the way its subject of study is presented. Though the aim is to dissect bigoted memes online with Science, the author deemed it inappropriate to grant her readers direct access to the offending material. The four case-study memes are “presented exclusively through schematic reconstructions created using standard image-editing tools, including limited AI-assisted transformations”, bringing to mind some SCP Foundation containment protocol for high-caliber memetic hazards.
I’m certain that the author believes she is doing genuine research investigating a pressing problem, so that’s the angle I'll consider it from. As far as its scientific value goes, my feelings are mixed. Though the author clearly did a lot of legwork collecting nearly 70 memes, and namedrops things from the Dark Enlightenment and human biodiversity to effective altruism, and genuinely attempts to figure out what makes memes compelling and facilitates their spread, the analysis of the memes seems incomplete.
One of the case studies, a meme that was circulating since 2018, originally features a crude outline of a man drawn in soyjack tradition saying:
The rhetorical thrust, as I see it, is to contrast some of the more shallow sounding supposed benefits of mass migration with its most lurid observed effects.
(In February this year a big account, owned by an actual left winger with real-life clout and bearing a striking resemblance to the meme character made this post:
Which is an interesting case of prophetic hyperstition)
" Ethically modified" version of the meme in the paper turns the man into a simpler, more friendly looking figure changing the text to:
And here's what the author has to say about it:
Though this goes in the right direction, nothing reflects comprehension of the joke, of what the meme tries to convey.
Refraining from including the original memes is a serious self-imposed limitation. She could talk about how the slovenly scribbled caricature serves to dehumanize open border supporters, and a grotesque crime is juxtaposed to a relatively marginal example of benefits of mass migration (which are, of course, countless) as a tool of propaganda.
Though the image of the author frowning and making notes as she browses racist jokes on Twitter brings me joy, this paper appears methodologically limited, and more research into the threat of racist memes online is likely required.
A lot of the originals were pretty sad excuses for comedy. There’s something to be said for slapping a fresh coat of irony on them. Maybe the next step is a Hollywood movie by a 20yo amateur.
On the other hand, I kept reading it as “ethnically modified,” which I suppose might have achieved the authors’ goals.
Also, I’m curious where the effective altruism crept in. You have a link to that one?
The full paper is in open access. Direct link to the PDF
Excerpt towards the end, page 22:
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