Know Your Meme

The #DarkMAGA Memes Arrive, And The Media Is On The Case

April 19th, 2022 - 2:43 PM EDT by Aidan Walker

(Twitter / @extradarkmaga, @thegoodgodabove)

#DarkMAGA, a phrase that originated on Twitter in early 2022, made its way into a recent Newsweek article, and trended online today as users on social media platforms wondered about its meaning and significance. The Newsweek article by Giulia Carbonaro describes Dark MAGA as a “post-alt-right aesthetic that promotes an authoritarian version of Trump in dystopian, Terminator-like images.”

Researchers on the alt-right interviewed by Carbonaro linked the rise of #DarkMAGA to “feelings of disenfranchisement” experienced by Trump supporters following the loss of the 2020 election, likening the narrative promoted by #DarkMAGA posters to narratives from “Warhammer 40k or a Japanese anime.” A #DarkMAGA poster quoted in the article compared Trump to Napoleon Bonaparte, who purportedly fought “the elites” of his day.

#DarkMAGA, according to the article, is an “over-the-top” aesthetic that aims to muddle the line between what’s sincere and ironic. It certainly wouldn’t be the first politically inflected online aesthetic to do that. In #DarkMAGA memes ironic and humorous visuals coexist with what may be a sincere political agenda: the reinstatement (probably through violent means) of Donald Trump as President.

Looking at the cluster of accounts that post #DarkMAGA content, it’s clear they are not widely followed on Twitter. That said, their niche is a robust one, and many #DarkMAGA memes garner several hundred likes each. In the feeds of accounts quoted in this article, roughly every other post features some kind of racial or ethnic slur. Most of the memes center on photographs of people (usually Donald Trump) deep-fried and with laser eyes. Most posts are also openly anti-semitic. To many perusing the hashtag, #DarkMAGA appears to essentially be a form of neo-Nazi schizoposting.

The online response to the Newsweek article was varied, as some commentators discussed how the label #DarkMAGA was somewhat redundant because in their view, the MAGA movement has already shown itself to be pretty dark.

In the absence of other defenses for #DarkMAGA and its aesthetics, some on the right took the opportunity to critique Newsweek (and the mainstream media in general) for what they saw as hamhanded coverage of a meme development and an alarmist account of its spread and influence.

Some posters on the left criticized the coverage of #DarkMAGA from the other direction, however, calling out both Twitter and Newsweek for not explicitly labeling #DarkMAGA a fascist aesthetic.

The Newsweek article has certainly brought the #DarkMAGA aesthetic more attention than it had before today, leading not only to much discussion on Twitter but posts on other sites (such as this one) covering that discussion and getting the #DarkMAGA memes circulating online. The #DarkMAGA trend demonstrates how the incentives for political discourse through memes tend to reward weird and extremist posts: meme trends that shock, that are visually striking, and that really upset the other side of the culture war, will do better and go further than more mundane posting.

The question of how to accurately and responsibly cover politically charged meme trends like #DarkMAGA will, in all likelihood, continue to stir up debate.

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