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A Sticky Meme For The Troll-Minded
The simple and grift easy “Let’s Go Brandon” meme is designed for shallow politics
It seems the meme war never ends and is usually at odds with reality. When you build an entire political movement on memes and shallow rhetoric packed with unrewarding nostalgia, you have to constantly reinvent the messaging. “Let’s Go Brandon” is the MAGA meme of the moment, a low-hanging fruit, barely recognizable outside the in-group, under the radar, fueled by grifters and honestly, it’s not a good thing.
For at least half a decade, conservatives have generally found the web to be a safe haven for speech while simultaneously a place to complain about the restrictions on speech. Pushed out of the mainstream discourse for saying things unacceptable within the Overton window, the far-right has used the web to code their malicious language in double entendres and vague memes. This enables bad actors to say things without saying them, to push limits but fall back on irony or “it’s just a joke,” to complain of censorship to their millions of followers. It’s always coded, meant for insiders and to create imagined communities and giggling in-groups.
The memes of the far-right are often coded so well that outsiders may not truly understand what they mean, regardless of the violence embedded in the…
