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Communication in the Age of Twitter: The Nature of Online Deliberation Read chapter Read first chapter

2020 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

10. Bros Before Donald Trump: Resisting and Replicating Hegemonic Ideologies in the #BROTUS Memes After the 2016 Election

Authors : Roberta Chevrette, Christopher M. Duerringer

Published in: Twitter, the Public Sphere, and the Chaos of Online Deliberation

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

Carrying out a rhetorical analysis of the #BROTUS memes that circulated on Twitter after the 2016 presidential election, this chapter examines how these memes challenge and replicate extant ideologies, blurring the lines between information and entertainment as well as private and public spheres. Findings show that, in spite of their humorous and banal content, memes can allow for the expression of resistance and the channeling of affect. At the same time, the authors point out that while the memes challenge the ideologies embodied by the Trump campaign, they also replicate some of the same values and beliefs. The #BROTUS memes show how Twitter serves as a vernacular sphere of political engagement while their popularity in part still relies on the same dominant ideologies they aim to resist.

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previous chapter An Exploratory Mixed-Method Analysis of Interpersonal Arguments on Twitter
next chapter #FamilyTravelHacks: Humor and Political Commentary in Hashtag Hijacking
Footnotes
1
The #BROTUS hashtag was first used to reference the public friendship of Obama and Biden in 2014 (BiasedGirl, 2014), but did not circulate widely until directly after the surprising election results. Many of the memes that users first circulated mentioning this hashtag were posted by Twitter user Barack_and_Joe. As the memes gained in popularity, spin-offs created by other users circulated across various social media sites.
 
2
For a discussion of the political exercise and contestation of power on social media, see Trottier and Fuchs (2015). For a qualitative investigation into social media’s democratic potential and regular capacities as it relates to Twitter, specifically, see Rosenbaum (2018).
 
3
The highly public nature of these memes and their circulation through retweets, newsstories, and entertainment websites minimizes any ethical concerns surrounding the analysis of social media data.
 
4
Although we have not included images of the memes due to copyright concerns, many remain searchable online as well as archived in newsstories (see, e.g., Bhatia, 2016; Johnson, 2016; Lazarro, 2016).
 
5
The tweets and memes that comprise our analysis here are, of course, only one means of responding to the loss of subjectivity following Trump’s election. Other Twitter responses sought instead to resist the election outcome and regenerate a sense of agency through social actions including the organization of nation-wide marches the day after the election (see Gallagher, Caplan, & Ebbs, 2016).
 
6
For further discussion of Trump’s anti-Mexicancampaign rhetoric see Newman, Shah, and Collingwood (2018) and Slaughter (2016).
 
7
As theorized by Connell (1995/2005), there is not a singular masculinity, but rather various masculinities that have different degrees of access to power. Our discussion thus understands masculinity as a normative construct rather than as a naturalized “gender identity belonging solely to male-bodied individuals” (Chevrette & Braverman, 2013, p. 87). Our critique focuses on hegemonicmasculinity as it manifests in the #BROTUS memes.
 
8
As discussed by Milner (2016), participatory media spaces have likewise long been spaces of (hegemonic) masculinity, another factor pointing to limitations of memetic citizenship for realizing progressive aims.
 
9
We are aware that much legal and public policy scholarship uses the term democratic paternalism to describe actions of state interference with no investigation or awareness of the gendered aspects of paternalism—a word whose etymology, rooted in the Latin pater (“father”), directly ties to masculine family structures. Our use of this term is not intended to confuse the reader. However, given that the uninterrogated gendering of politics is central to this chapter, we find the ambiguity of this term prescient in this context.
 
10
For a discussion of the relationship between the “Uncle Tom” stereotype and whiteness, see Petroni (1970).
 
11
Bruns and Highfield (2016) also offer an examination of how Twitter fulfills a variety of functions related to the public sphere, or what they and others refer to instead as “public sphericules” (p. 61).
 
12
See Ong’s (1996) discussion of citizenship (p. 738).
 
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Metadata
Title
Bros Before Donald Trump: Resisting and Replicating Hegemonic Ideologies in the #BROTUS Memes After the 2016 Election
Authors
Roberta Chevrette
Christopher M. Duerringer
Copyright Year
2020
Publisher
Springer International Publishing
Book
Twitter, the Public Sphere, and the Chaos of Online Deliberation

Print ISBN: 978-3-030-41420-7

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-030-41421-4

Copyright Year: 2020

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41421-4_10