Memenesia (2021)
is a PDF-publication about meme culture

Editors: Jerry Galle & Mike Watson
Design: Mona Lisa’s
Published by V2_, 2021

Memes are a great tool to appropriate reality. Memes are not detached from the conditions of society, but they reflect these conditions in many respects. Despite or possibly because of the fractured nature of this reflection, societal conditions are made visible via memetic output. If we know that post-capitalism has become an abstraction, memes concretize it in their chaotic form. Post-capitalism works best when it’s not perceived at all, thus securing the limits of what’s supposed to be the experience of reality. Memes however are tools for making visible and therefore they expand the experience of reality.

The writings collected in Memenesia are about this making-visible. The texts illustrate the fractured nature of the meme landscape and with it also its richness and liveliness. Memenesia’s texts range from an interview with a Gen Z blogger and political meme poster, to the current and possible future uses of deepfakes in meme culture and beyond. Taken as a whole these texts present not only a critical view on meme culture, but also on our digital reality today.

Contents
Preface
Jerry Galle: Reality Rerun
Caroline Sinders: GameStop & Gamergate: Unpacking Networked Action, Trolling, Harm, and Memes
Valentina Tanni: Bodies on the Screen A Short Essay on Performative Memes
Marc Tuters: Why Meme Magic is Real but Memes are Not: On Order Words, Refrains and the Deep Vernacular Web
Joshua Citarella: In conversation with D.Z. Rowan
Mike Watson: Digital Flaneurism
Kim de Groot: Talk to Meme