What GameStop and Pepe the Frog have to do with the state of democracy

What do Pepe the Frog, WallStreetBets and the state of democracy have in common? Meme culture. You heard a whole lot about the “meme stock mania” last week (but did you hear that Jaime Rogozinski, the WallStreetBets subreddit’s founder, just sold his life story to RatPac Entertainment?). You may not have heard of Pepe the Frog until “he” became a meme tweeted by Donald Trumps Sr. and Jr. in 2015. Now Pepe’s the subject of the important documentary about Internet culture and meme politics Feels Good Man.

Whatever we think about meme stocks and meme politics, they’re part of the media environment in which our children are growing up and likely participating. It’s quite possible they don’t find all this as unsettling or chaotic as we do — because they don’t know what life, politics, institutions, popular culture, etc. were like before they were being gamified.

And that’s what we’re zooming in on, here. It’s important to consider what these meme-ified events are telling us about our time, as we start to emerge from the pandemic, as Americans start to experience a very different government, as young Internet users get to see what adults say about their digital rights, as people all over the world are protesting against authoritarians and as governments worldwide struggle more than ever to regulate the Internet.

Memes aren’t only graphics or cultural symbols spread on the Internet. The visual piece is huge — especially with our children — but a…