What Monkeypox Memes Tell Us About Reactionary Narratives

Health organizations and the public should be aware how memes are used during public health crises

“Panic?” by PimGMX is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

In the first few months of the Covid-19 pandemic, meme creators were setting the cultural tone of the oncoming shifts that result from a global disease. Memes and online humor aid in coping with concepts bigger than comprehension, but also enable us to believe that some of our innermost thoughts are actually shared by others. The memes that emerged as a result of Covid-19, first from Italy, then the rest of the world, created a visual history — and maybe an internet art history — of the way we dealt with a pandemic in our connected culture. Now, two years later, a viral Monkeypox breakout has entered our cultural consciousness. However, Monkeypox memes aren’t anything like the previous Covid-19 memes and health organizations should take note.

Today’s Monkeypox memes aren’t doing the same work that Covid-19 memes were able to do. In fact, Monkeypox meme creators — and there aren’t that many — are purposefully weaponizing the medium to reinforce reactionary stances, conspiracy theories, and spread anti-vaccination propaganda.

Let’s take a look back at Covid-19 memes in early 2020 in comparison to the Monkeypox memes emerging now. In…