The analysis carried on in this thesis goes to show that Dezarticulat appear to have a solid grasp on the theorization of memes as artifacts of participatory digital culture (Wiggins &
Bowers, 2015). By creating carefully curated meme genres, Dezarticulat are aware that they are responding to “social, political and technological ecologies” (Shifman, 2014b, p. 342) through easily shareable memes. On this basis, Dezarticulat are educating their public through memes in an attempt to make up for the lack of any Romanian mainstream left-wing publications. In this sense, memes become the main carrier of Dezarticulat’s thought and ideas through their different applications, as figure 8 shows. Although they employ different types of memes, Dezarticulat echo Hakoköngäs et al.’s argument that memes can be used to disseminate different types of political arguments (2020). Moreover, they are also compensating for a lack of actual political support; in a country where the Social Democrat Party does little to help disadvantaged or at-risk groups, the culture war thus becomes more of a culture conflict, since there are not any institutionalized left-wing political movements to offer a real and tangible support for the issues addressed by Dezarticulat. This causes the culture conflict in Romania to be heavily disproportionate. In this regard, Dezarticulat are situated as a key player in the online culture war. Even though they do not explicitly stress their participation in the culture war, Dezarticulat have developed their own style and format of memes, which they use in order to counteract the dominant political thought in Romania.
Oddly enough, Dezarticulat did not start as a participant in the Romanian culture war. Only after gaining some traction and becoming more subcultural, catering to a specific and niche taste did they realize that there is a lack of representation of left-wing ideas in the Romanian society, changing the original purpose of the page. Initially, the content that they posted was relatively heterogeneous – figures 11 and 12 show that while they did post memes from an assumed left-wing perspective, their style and format was definitely in its infancy. After going through a period of posting dank memes, in 2019 they had changed their style to attract more followers. This goes hand in hand with Penney’s (2019) argument that online political discourse is based around memes. On one hand, Dezarticulat does this by combining politics and humor very well, which allows them to capture the attention of their publics. In a sense, looking at figures 12 or 14, Dezarticulat have created their own genre of memes, which have
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highly specific cultural allusions while educating their followers and bringing to light societal issues. They are doing this by engaging not only with memes in a ‘traditional format’, i.e., a stock image with text overlaid on it, but using multimodality through videos or gifs, all packed in a shareable form, which allows for an ease of propagation.
By using such memes, Dezarticulat are contributing to the normalization of left-wing discourse in the Romanian political and meme sphere. By constantly exposing people to such ideas, as well as owning up and outright admitting they are left-wing, they are taking a stance against the right-wing hegemony which has been constantly growing in Romania. This normalization of left-wing discourse appears in the context of the page’s followers. As the findings have shown, Dezarticulat are addressing both their subcultural ‘core’ followers, as well as people who are not well-versed or have the cultural capital to decipher all these memes. As it stands, this is a strategy that Dezarticulat employs in the online culture war – by not being politically explicit all the time, they are able to appeal to both sensibilities – cultural and political – which are heavily tackled in their memes. Through this, Dezarticulat can make use of the pretense of satire or irony to post memes mentioning communism or communist figures without making their followers lose interest in the page. Looking at figure 8, this argument might seem a bit contradictory, as the number of persuasive memes is much lower and sporadic than public discussion memes. Yet the key to understand this contradiction resides, for example, in memes such as the one pictured in figure 18. While Dezarticulat are critiquing a particular event pertaining to public figures and political actors, they are subtly nudging their followers in a specific direction, by explicitly referencing Karl Marx’s Das Kapital. This reference carries a two-fold significance: first, it is a subtle nudge to the people who are familiar with both the context of the video (which originally references the book Sapiens) and left-wing theory; second, in the context of the anti-communist sentiment which is prevalent in Romania, Dezarticulat take a risk and address people who might not be familiar with Marx’s work.
Comparing the Romanian online culture war to its rendition in the United States, one aspect which needs to be pointed out is the difference in how particular memes are used. For example, Dezarticulat have created their own characters, Tibi and Ligia, which function similarly to Pepe the Frog, in the sense that they, too, are floating signifiers. However, these
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characters differ from Pepe – although they are used to construct a certain political and cultural identity, i.e., corporate middle-class, urban and educated people, they are never used to represent completely opposed political ideologies (Farkas & Schou, 2018). The characters themselves are inserted into the memes and used as an example to reflect a particular take on a subject, whereas Pepe the Frog is used in precisely the opposite manner, by having different characters turned into Pepe, such as in figure 1. Such memes posted by Dezarticulat have a predominantly subcultural character, typical for the ‘dank’ period mentioned in the findings.
In the latest period, after 2020, Dezarticulat more or less renounced dank memes in favor of appealing to a larger public. This also coincides with a change in strategy – they had started monetizing their page through different avenues – a book which satirizes get-rich-quick books, t-shirts and other merchandise.
The memes used by Dezarticulat are also very topical concerning the state of political affairs in Romania, especially in the latest period. Figure 9 showcases such a meme, which references local elections held in Bucharest. While this is not a dank meme, due to its very straightforward allusions to the popular 2019 film Parasite and the elections, it goes to show that Dezarticulat are actively engaged with the current events. This was not necessarily the case for the earlier periods; even though there have been elections in 2014 and 2016, Dezarticulat did not use these as a source for their memes, contrasting the latest period. The main reason for this lies in the fact that the page was still discovering its memetic and political character.
The findings also show that Dezarticulat have created their own meme style and genre, as it can be observed from figures 14-16. This particular style, with includes lots of text and obscure/absurd references represents the core feature of Dezarticulat in the ‘dank’ period. In this sense, these memes should be seen through Wiggins and Bowers’ articulation of artefacts conglomerated in a genre based on the “activities that give rise and use to them” (2015, p. 8).
This echoes Shifman’s argument (2014b) that memes change based on the social and political context in which they appear. In the context of the anti-corruption protests between 2017-2019 in Romania, which marked the relative downfall of PSD, the most visible right-wing parties have managed to further consolidate their position. As such, this can be directly correlated to the change in Dezarticulat’s style, who developed a more subcultural style, oriented towards
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stronger neoliberal critique (and right-wing, in general) with the purpose of strengthening their position in the culture war. This is also one of the main reasons for the popularity of public discussion memes from this period, due to the fact that they tackle important events happening in the Romanian society, touching upon cultural, social and political aspects by using humor as opposed to more ‘serious’ and formal political critique.
What is particularly interesting for both Dezarticulat and the Romanian culture conflict is that the page itself operates on a mainstream, face culture platform – Facebook, which traditionally represents one’s “official life” on the internet (de Zeeuw & Tuters, 2020). The reason for using it as the main source for disseminating their ideas resides in a strategic choice, with the purpose of reaching a wider audience. However, they use Facebook also because Romania does not have a strong mask culture, like the US does – there are some small imageboards or forums where people can post anonymously or pseudonymously, but Facebook is still widely used in Romania. Regardless of the fact that they are present on a mainstream platform, Dezarticulat still engage in posting more controversial memetic content for Romania, even though this might have serios political implications and consequences – sharing a meme such as the one present in figure 12, which portrays Karl Marx, can be damaging to their online presence due to the prevailing anti-communist sentiment in Romania.
Concerning another difference regarding the way in which the culture was is carried on differently in Romania, the right-wing does not make use of memes as much as their US counterparts. This difference is caused by the two-party system in the United States – in this sense, there is not a single party or dominant political ideology who has a hegemony. In Romania, the situation is the opposite, which causes the right-wing to not be as entrenched in the culture war, since they already hold positions of power. This is not to say that the right-wing does not participate in the culture war, but the way they do it is not necessarily formulated as being part of the culture war, since pages such as Dezarticulat are too small to be noticed or to offer tangible political contestation. Indeed, there are a couple of far-right Facebook pages which have gained a small following, but this is mainly caused by their focus on anti-communism and an adoption of the US alt-right rhetoric. On the other hand, some popular meme pages – who do not have an explicit political agenda or constantly engage with political content – are tackling certain issues from a right-wing point of view. Some of these
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examples include portraying Roma people as thieves, citizens on welfare as being lazy, among others. Dezarticulat directly address some of these issues and pages in their memes, which proves that they take part in activities outside their own sphere.
In the theoretical discussion, I have proposed the following definition for the culture war, which allows for a more general understanding of the concept, without having to relate to its manifestation in the United States: the culture war represents an inherent tension between two antagonistic groups, regarding the way in which a nation should develop its cultural and social values, with the end-goal of gaining political power and popular support over the opposing group. This is one of the main contributions that the thesis brings to the discussion around culture wars. The tension between the two antagonistic groups is reflected in the culture war through transposing political tensions in the cultural and social fields. As such, the culture war becomes not an issue of how different political factions face each other at the level of policies (and their consequences on the social and cultural layer), but rather how do these policies reflect the values of a particular nation. For the online side of the culture war, this is marked through a conflict mediated through memes and other memetic materials, while its main purpose is to engage with and gain popular support. In essence, this definition can be extrapolated to the wider idea of ‘regional culture wars’, as there cannot be a singular culture war. Each country has its own specificities, and in this thesis, I have shown how it is unfolded in Romania. There is also different political engagement based on how the present political sphere is configured, which makes the culture war as a general concept not good enough to represent all political systems with their own particularities and tensions. The Romanian online culture war differs from the US and it is largely based on heavy regional influences and cultural specificities; in this sense, it has its own meme formats, as the findings have shown, which are molded on cultural and social sensibilities.
Another key contribution – and an aspect which allows for this type of research to be carried in different countries – represents the adaptation of the categorization proposed by Chagas et al. (2019), which can be seen in Table 1. Concerning the methodology, the original table was not sufficient to fully represent the Romanian culture war, as it was based on a specific region as well – in their case, Brazil. This goes to show that the model for meme analysis that they have created can be adapted to the particularities of different countries where there is a
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rendition of an online culture war (or conflict), with the purpose of gaining a deeper understanding of how it is unfolded. In this sense, the type of analysis present in this thesis strengthens the fact that the culture war cannot be understood by itself, outside the context in which it appears. As such, the definition proposed allows for a base layer upon which the different culture wars can be understood and theorized.
By applying the proposed definition to the Romanian online culture war/conflict, correlated with the findings of the thesis, it becomes apparent that the inherent tension between the antagonistc groups – the memetic left-wing, represented by Dezarticulat – and the right-wing, consisting of the already-established political hegemony is an imbalanced conflict.
Dezarticulat are addressing societal and cultural issues through their use of left-wing memes, trying to gain popular support over right-wing factions. What it cannot do, however, is formulate a way in which it can influence the political sphere without proper and institutionalized support. As the theoretical discussion has shown, in the United States, the main tension is related to how the American life should be lived and what are the values that the country should ascribe to. This is the main cause for the cleavage between the Republican and Democrat parties and their followers. Meanwhile, in Europe, this tension is manifested as the conflict between national and supranational bodies. This tension is exacerbated in a couple of countries which have been governed by right-wing parties, such as Hungary, Poland or the United Kingdom, where Euroscepticism is prevailing.
However, in Romania the situation is relatively different. The only declared Eurosceptic party is AUR, which has only recently gained popular support, on the backdrop of the 2017-2019 protests. The main issues in Romania remain the corruption of elected officials, along with societal problems – discrimination of Roma people, women, homelessness and poverty, among others. In this sense, the most important attribute of the Romanian culture war is that it is not necessarily manifested as a confrontation between left-wing and right-wing parties – but it is rather focused around class, education and race. Through their memes, Dezarticulat are pushing forward their point of view with the purpose of raising awareness regarding such issues and embedding a left-wing perspective in the content that they are posting, with the purpose of offering resistance and an alternative to the accelerating right-wing rhetoric. The outcome of this dynamic makes it so that the culture war is manifested in a pragmatic manner:
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that is not to say that values or principles are not important or that they to not carry a certain weight. Euroscepticism, for example, is a current that is slowly making its presence felt in Romania as well. This is an outcome of the tension present in the EU between national and supra-national bodies. Returning to values, although many Romanian people are non-practicing Christians, the involvement of the Church in Romanian life for hundreds of years has left its mark, so the Romanian culture war also addresses issues of morality. However, this morality is entangled with a right-wing meritocracy, where those people who are disadvantaged or discriminated are perceived as being lazy.
On the topic of political representation, Romania differs from the United States in the fact that conservatism – in the form present in the US or some European countries – is not as prevalent in Romania. While there have been Romanian conservative parties, currently the most prominent ideologies in modern Romanian history have been liberalism and neoliberalism.
As such, the Romanian culture war is less preoccupied with US-specific issues such as progressivism or feminism; the main perceived threats in Romania are centered around the presence of socialism and communism, as manifestations of Romania’s past communist regimes.
Dezarticulat’s discourse in the online culture war is less inflammatory than its US counterpart, yet it seems to be more incisive in penalizing what they perceive as unresolved issues in the Romanian society. On the other hand, memes posted by Dezarticulat seem to go unnoticed by the mainstream political discussion. The main reason for this resides in the lack of an institutionalized left-wing representation on the political level. Since the right-wing does not have real opposition or contestation and it already has the popular support (confirmed by the latest legislative elections), the Romanian right does not need to engage in an online ‘war’
against the left-wing at a cultural level as it is already in a position of power. Controversial issues, such as abortion, LGBTQ+ rights or growing Euroscepticism are very rarely mentioned in the Romanian political sphere. While these topics are touched upon by the likes of Dezarticulat and other small left-wing movements and organizations, they do not represent a priority for Romania, especially in the current context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Finally, the thesis has established how Dezarticulat is using memes to push forward left-wing ideas in the Romanian meme space. By showcasing what types of memes they post, along
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with their specific style and content, a clearer view of the Romanian culture was has been contoured. One of the main takeaways is that contrary to the United States, there is not an inherent antagonism, an ‘us’ versus ‘them’ at the level of political ideology, due to the lack of representation at an institutional level of left-wing politics. In this sense, the Romanian online culture war, as mentioned, is more of a culture conflict. However, the analysis and findings go to show the extent to which Dezarticulat have been using memes, which is a common trait with the US culture war.
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