Meme Wars

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About

Meme Wars is an expression often referring to online rivalries in which opposing factions use internet memes to battle against one another or more generally as a clash of competing ideas.

Origin

In 2006, the free magazine Memewar^[5] was created as a multidisciplinary magazine including work from various genres, including poetry, prose, art, photography, essays and comics. The name was based on a combination of "memoir," a recording of history, and "meme war," as a clash of ideas.

Spread

On November 6th, 2010, SpacetimeStudios Forums^[7] member smoae submitted a thread titled "Meme War," inviting other users to reply with various internet memes. On March 13th, 2011, YouTuber OnlineJon posted a video titled "Meme Wars," featuring live-action footage of young men with "rage comic": characters superimposed over their heads (shown below).

On August 22nd, the news site Blacklisted News^[4] published an article titled "DARPA Prepares for Meme War," which reported on social media research projects by the United States government. On September 7th, 2012, a meme war-themed "One Does Not Simply" image macro was submitted to Quickmeme^[8] (shown below).

On July 26th, 2014, the hip-hop news site Battle Rap^[6] reported that the rappers Dizaster and Organik were battling on Instagram in a "meme war." On August 1st, 2016, Redditor Xerator uploaded a photograph of an elderly man talking to a younger man at a table with the caption reminiscing about "meme wars" (shown below).

"When you're telling your grand kids all bout the meme wars you fought in back in 2014, 2015, and 2016."

2016 United States Presidential Election

The 2016 United States presidential election has been referred to as "The Great Meme War" by supporters of Republican president-elect Donald Trump. On May 3rd, 2016, YouTuber mikesmikey uploaded a video titled "Meme Wars: Dat Boi Awaken," featuring footage from the film Star Wars: The Force Awakens edited with internet meme references and photos of Donald Trump (shown below).

Following Trump's victory in the election on November 9th, a 4chan user submitted a post to /pol/ questioning "will there ever be a meme war like this again?" (shown below). That day, a screenshot of the post was submitted to /r/4chan,^[3] where it garnered upwards of 2,100 votes (97% upvoted) and 50 comments.

On November 12th, 2016, a page titled "The Great Meme War" was created on Encyclopedia Dramatica.^[2] On November 14th, YouTuber Murdoch Murdoch uploaded a video titled "The Great Meme War of 2016, featuring an animation of Pepe the Frog, Feels Guy, feminists and Pokemon engaging in an epic battle (shown below).

[This video has been removed]

On November 15th, Redditor BigStinkTurd posted a Pepperidge Farms Remembers image macro photoshopped with Pepe the Frog titled "Member the Great Meme War" to the /r/The_Donald^[1] subreddit (shown below).