FROM TAINTED MEMES TO TRENDING STREAMS: HOW LIVE 
STREAMING SERVES AS A VECTOR IN  
FAR-RIGHT MEME NORMALIZATION 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
by 
GRIFFIN O’GRADY 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
A THESIS 
Presented to the Department of Folklore and Public Culture  
and the Robert D. Clark Honors College  
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of  
Bachelor of Arts 
 
June 2024 
 
 
An Abstract of the Thesis of 
Griffin O’Grady for the degree of Bachelor of Arts 
in the Department of Folklore and Public Culture to be taken June 2024 
 
Title:  From Tainted Memes to Trending Streams: How Live Streaming Serves  
as a Vector in Far-Right Meme Normalization 
 
 
Approved:       Lisa Wolverton, Ph.D.   
         Primary Thesis Advisor 
 
 
The far-right, a group which includes all forms of right-wing belief that fall outside of 
social norms,1 has always used comedy and mockery to bolster their beliefs, and this has become 
even more true in the digital era. Their use of memes and other inside jokes is heavily 
documented and longstanding. Historically, however, these jokes existed on the edge or just 
beyond the edge of acceptability in polite society. With the introduction of the internet those on 
the edge were able to convene and insulate themselves on dedicated message boards and niche 
websites like 4chan or early reddit. Meme culture originated here, with a focus on “trolling” and 
edgy jokes. Later, meme culture became much more widespread, but lost much of what made it 
socially intolerable before. Jokes were less edgy, content was less focused on bigotry, the format 
and irreverence remained but these new memes were for everyone. This is the world we have 
been living in for the past decade, with memes successfully breaking through to the mainstream 
and becoming a major facet of life both digitally and in reality. This breakthrough happened 
because the ecosystem of the internet was such that, as memes moved further and further through 
 
1 “The Overton Window.” Mackinac Center, www.mackinac.org/OvertonWindow. Accessed 3 June 2024. 
2 
 
 
the internet, they were softened and made palatable, with the original more offensive versions 
rarely escaping their site of conception. People did not widely repost offensive things, but they 
did repost non-offensive jokes told in the same format. This led to an ecosystem where, even 
though the right was creating the original memes, everyone else was using memes much more 
successfully and widely. The case I will make in my thesis is that, recently, this movement from 
the edges of the internet to mainstream social media has become much shorter, and thus the 
bigoted ideas aren’t nearly as detached from the formats and jokes. Bigoted phrases and ideas 
from these insulated far-right communities are picked up directly rather than being slowly 
smoothed out and passed down. Because of this, audiences (often consisting of children and 
teens) are being exposed to, essentially, propaganda from the right, implanting ideas of 
homophobia, sexism, and racism in their still forming psyche. I believe the reason this content 
migration has quickened so much is due to the popularization of live streaming in recent years, 
especially among younger audiences. In this paper, I will examine a few specific examples of 
memes that have made their way from far-right communities into the wider internet and analyze 
how they made that move through live streaming. I will conclude by analyzing how this 
development fits into the history of internet content and political comedy in general.   
3 
 
 
Acknowledgements 
 
Thank you to my parents, who always encouraged my passions and provided endless 
support throughout this process. 
Thank you to Clay and Alia, who kept me sane no matter how stressful life could be. 
And thank you to Dr. Lisa Wolverton, who consistently encouraged me and honed my 
ramblings into a cohesive thesis. I couldn’t have done it without you. 
 
  
4 
 
 
Table of Contents 
Introduction 7 
Literature Review & Methodological Background 9 
Memes 9 
Comedy 12 
Live Streaming 14 
Research 20 
Wojaks 21 
“Caught in 4k” 28 
“Fatherless Behavior” 32 
Irreverence and Indoctrination: How Comedy affects our Politics 38 
What’s The Punchline? An Analysis of My Findings 49 
Conclusion 52 
Bibliography 53 
  
5 
 
 
List of Figures  
Figure 1: A Timeline of Wojaks 21 
Figure 2: Original NPC Post 27 
Figure 3: An Example of the “Caught In 4k” Meme 29 
Figure 4: An Example of Criticism of the “Caught In 4K” Meme 31 
Figure 5: An example of the “Fatherless Behavior” Meme 33 
Figure 6: Examples of Commenters Using “Fatherless Behavior” 35 
Figure 7: An Example of a “Reclaimed” Use of the “Fatherless Behavior” Meme 47 
 
6 
 
 
Introduction 
   Growing up in the internet age, I have always been very interested in what is happening 
online, especially in places not very popular in the mainstream. Being on the inside of 
everyone’s inside jokes was important to me, so I sought out more and more obscure and niche 
corners of the internet. Eventually this brought me to some unsavory places, seeing bigoted ideas 
played up for laughs and reactions. Being young and lacking the analytical tools to recognize 
these dog whistles and exaggerations, I did not see the problem and assumed these were just 
more jokes I was not quite getting. I quickly learned that, outside of these internet outskirts, these 
are sensitive topics and often not things an individual should be joking about. This sparked an 
ongoing interest in how some on the right make themselves both disarming and immune to 
criticism by operating in the realm of comedy, disregarding any accusations of bigotry with a 
simple “it’s just a joke”. Humor has always been an effective method of normalizing an 
individual's ideas, especially with unassuming audiences. Having watched this development for 
the past decade or so, I have noticed the impacts of far-right internet use become more and more 
consequential in the real world, as well as seeing that beliefs that were once obscure and 
exclusively online have become talking points for politicians and news organizations. For a long 
time, this normalization of bigotry online remained a niche interest of mine, with barely any 
tangible consequence in the real world beyond a few annoying people and the occasional attack 
encouraged and carried out by far-right extremists. As time has gone on, though, many of these 
ideas that were once relegated to the dark corners of the internet have made their way closer and 
closer to mainstream recognition. I believe we have now finally crossed the threshold into this 
being a problem that can no longer be ignored. 
7 
 
 
This paper's goal is to explain and analyze how far-right memes integrate into 
mainstream meme culture and how that process has evolved in recent years. In order to do this, I 
will be examining three examples of memes with similar but distinct journeys from far-right use 
to mainstream consciousness. I will discuss the messaging of these memes, as well as when and 
how that messaging may have changed over the course of their migrations. I will then compare 
my findings to methods and processes of meme transmission across the last 20 or so years and 
consider the circulation of offensive memes within the history of political comedy as a whole. 
 
8 
 
 
Literature Review & Methodological Background 
 
This section will establish the research already done on and around my subject to identify 
what is relevant, and what holes there are in the field. I will focus especially on published papers 
on far-right meme use, comedy as a political tool, and the motivations behind both creating and 
consuming live streaming content. My aim in this thesis will then be to bring together the 
research between these disparate factors to form my own conclusions. 
 
Memes 
Meme research, in general, is a fairly new but very active field. Researchers from many 
diverse fields have begun to analyze all aspects of memes. Linguists,2 economists,3 art 
historians,4 --nearly every discipline has reason to examine memes because memes have become 
a major part of the content we consume. The majority of meme research, however, seems to be in 
political science and anthropology. There is a growing body of research on what memes say 
about a person’s politics5, what memes say about the wider culture,6 and what the implications of 
those memes are.7 While useful and insightful, most of this research looks only at memes once 
they have become popular, and not the process through which that popularity is achieved. That is 
not to say that no one is researching the popularization, but the work tends to focus only on the 
 
2  Davison, Patrick. "The language of internet memes." The social media reader (2012): 120-134. 
3  Harbo, Tenna Foustad. "Internet memes as knowledge practice in social movements: Rethinking Economics’ 
delegitimization of economists." Discourse, context & media 50 (2022): 100650. 
4  Piata, Anna. "Stylistic humor across modalities: The case of Classical Art Memes." Internet Pragmatics 3.2 
(2020): 174-201. 
5  Burton, Julian. "Look at us, we have anxiety: Youth, memes, and the power of online cultural politics." Journal of 
Childhood Studies (2019): 3-17. 
6  Handayani, Fitrie, Siti Dewi Sri Ratna Sari, and Wira Respati. "The use of meme as a representation of public 
opinion in social media: A case study of meme about Bekasi in Path and Twitter." Humaniora 7.3 (2016): 333-339. 
7  Wiggins, Bradley E. The discursive power of memes in digital culture: Ideology, semiotics, and intertextuality. 
Routledge, 2019. 
9 
 
 
hard data of how and where memes are moving.8 There is little to no mention of the social and 
political implications that come with popularity, or the possible messages conveyed by the 
memes. As far as I can tell, research bridging growth analysis with political or cultural analysis is 
rare, leaving room for new and exciting research that considers both factors.  
In order to establish a framework through which I can properly analyze memes, I will 
draw on methods from Injeong Yoon’s article “Why is it not Just a Joke? Analysis of Internet 
Memes Associated with Racism and Hidden Ideology of Colorblindness.”9 This paper utilizes 
comedy analysis tools to analyze racism in memes and makes the case that we cannot ignore 
these things simply because they are “jokes.” The author begins by explaining the methods she 
uses to analyze these memes through the lens of art criticism and the study of humor and race. 
Specifically, she discusses the idea of “color-blindness,” i.e., not acknowledging race, and how it 
negatively affects people of color. She then collects memes from a meme sharing website by 
searching the phrase “that’s racist”, which was a popular meme in the mid 2010’s. After settling 
on 87 of these memes (identified based on popularity and relevance to her research), she 
analyzes each to see what is being blatantly said and what is being implied. She finds that 
African Americans are overwhelmingly the most mocked group within these memes. This set of 
memes is subdivided into categories according to the form of racism the meme exploits: Making 
fun of African Americans directly through stereotyping, denying the existence of racism, and 
mocking the notion that racism exists. She concludes that, despite being separate forms of 
racism, all of the race-based memes analyzed end up having the same effect of encouraging 
racism as well as making racism harder to discuss genuinely online. 
 
8  Wang, Le-Zhi, et al. "A model for meme popularity growth in social networking systems based on biological 
principle and human interest dynamics." Chaos: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Nonlinear Science 29.2 (2019). 
9  Yoon, InJeong. "Why is it not just a joke? Analysis of Internet memes associated with racism and hidden ideology 
of colorblindness." Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education 33.1 (2016). 
10 
 
 
Yoon cites many different analyses of comedy and its effects, ruling out some she 
disagrees with and some that were simply not fit for analyzing internet humor, eventually settling 
on “critical humor theory” (CHT) in tandem with critical race theory (CRT) to analyze racism 
and color-blindness in memes. Put simply, CHT says that bigotry in humor, specifically racism 
in this case, does not go away just because you are not aware of its being there. Instead, any 
veiled bigotry contained within is normalized, emphasizing the importance of calling out bigotry 
in humor when we see it. CHT is the most relevant form of comedic analysis for my thesis and 
will be a major part of any conclusions I draw. 
The author emphasizes that most previous research on the subject either does not cover 
the internet or underestimates the impact of internet humor. As she shows, research on internet 
humor pre-2016 either paints it wholly positively or downplays some of the worse content on the 
grounds that some individuals in the marginalized group find it funny as well. Research focusing 
on the reactions of individuals fails to account for online communities and systemic issues of 
racism and bigotry. 
Yoon’s research is heavily reliant on ideas from CRT. She specifically cites the idea of 
“color-blindness”, a denial of racism’s existence because a person “does not see color”. The 
issue with “color-blindness” is that ignoring racism does not make it go away, it just normalizes 
it. Building off this, she asserts that many internet users carry this belief, with users claiming that 
their racism is void because they were “just making a joke”. Yoon uses the concept of “color-
blindness” from CRT and maps it onto CHT to discredit this belief and prove that, no matter the 
intent, memes engaging in racist humor always have larger systemic consequences. 
This research is perhaps the most relevant to my own out of all the works I cite 
throughout the thesis. Yoon’s article not only provides a relevant form of comedic analysis while 
11 
 
 
arguing for its use in online spaces, but it also highlights a major issue with meme study in 
general: The fact that it is rarely taken seriously. Memes are jokes; it is in their nature to be 
laughed off and moved past. Yoon is still able to explain the dangers inherent in interacting with 
memes that way. Although the internet has shifted significantly since her paper was published, 
and many of the examples used for analysis likely would not go uncriticized, that does not mean 
the problem is gone, just harder to detect. Yoon’s research provides the tools to get beyond a 
surface level assessment, which may not initially suggest any problems with popular memes with 
far-right origins, while deeper analysis utilizing CHT will. 
 
Comedy 
Comedy, similar to memes, has been studied by people across many disciplines. Only 
recently has meme research begun to overlap with comedy research, however-- mostly in the 
fields of anthropology10 and literature.11 The overall scholarship around comedy is vast and 
covers many subjects relevant to this paper, including the political use of comedy,12 the social 
implications of comedy,13 and the way comedy is presented and perceived.14 All these are areas 
that will inform my analysis of memes. 
The connection between online comedy (memes especially) and real-world politics can 
sometimes be difficult to detect, so I will be using methods established in “Elite male bodies: 
The circulation of alt-Right memes and the framing of politicians on Social Media” by Nicolle 
 
10  Oring, Elliott. "Humor in anthropology and folklore." The primer of humor research 8 (2008): 183-210. 
11  Heller, Agnes. The immortal comedy: The comic phenomenon in art, literature, and life. Lexington Books, 2005. 
12  Cao, Xiaoxia, and Paul R. Brewer. "Political comedy shows and public participation in politics." International 
Journal of Public Opinion Research 20.1 (2008): 90-99. 
13  Henkle, Roger B. "The Social Dynamics of Comedy." The Sewanee Review 90.2 (1982): 200-216. 
14  Sypher, Wylie. "The meanings of comedy." Comedy: Meaning and form (1956): 20-51. 
12 
 
 
Lamerichs, et al.15 The authors study far-right meme usage during the 2016 election and the 
underlying beliefs contained within the memes. They consider 100’s of memes from various far-
right meme pages, Trump and Putin fan pages in particular, and then analyze the levels of 
engagement for each meme. Their findings show that each of the Facebook pages had 100’s of 
thousands of likes, while Instagram pages on the same subject had similar numbers of followers 
(”liking“ a page on Facebook is essentially the same as ”following“ a page on Instagram). In 
conjunction with this research, they analyze literature on how memes can be an important 
component of public discourse, as memes come directly from the people making them rather 
than someone else reporting on their beliefs. They then analyze literature on how politicians and 
governmental bodies are characterized online and in memes, becoming less of an actual person 
or group and more a representation of the ideas people associate with them. Finally, they use 
literary analysis tools to explore the intertextual implications of these memes and if these memes 
can be accurately characterized as parody. They conclude that these memes do act as parody and 
were an important factor in the 2016 election and served not only to ridicule Trump’s opponents, 
but also to paint Trump as the ideal leader due to his far-right views. 
The authors of this paper expand on the works of past authors by directly citing older 
political concepts like “the kings two bodies” and mapping them onto far-right behavior today, 
consolidating two previously unmatched concepts. This melding of online research with political 
theory is crucial to my thesis, as the memes I research will need to be analyzed through a 
theoretical lens rather than taken at face value, and most theory that would be applicable was 
written without memes in mind. Being able to bridge that divide is incredibly important for the 
soundness of my arguments, and this text establishes a way to do that. 
 
15  Lamerichs, Nicolle, et al. "Elite male bodies: The circulation of alt-Right memes and the framing of politicians on 
Social Media." Participations 15.1 (2018): 180-206. 
13 
 
 
Live Streaming 
Live streaming, as we understand it today, developed in the 90’s but did not see wide 
popularity until 2011,16 when Twitch was founded.17 Over the course of live streaming’s 
existence, the work of streamers has evolved from little more than gaming to include a broad 
range of subjects with varying levels of public interaction. As the internet has changed and 
content sourcing algorithms evolved, what makes a streamer successful has changed with it. This 
section will analyze research on motivations for live streaming, both for creators and consumers, 
to find what kind of content generates the widest and most consistent audience. 
Research on live stream viewers is comparatively sparse and tends to focus on user-
engagement and hard data, looking only at statistics.18 Such data is incredibly useful, and 
relevant to this paper, but unfortunately barely touches on the human element and social 
implications of patterns in live streaming. Live stream research is also largely focused on e-
sports, the most immediately profitable and mainstream form of live streaming for the past two 
decades. While e-sports do include some level of streamer-audience interaction, the genre is 
inherently less personal because viewers are generally not watching a single personality, but a 
whole team or tournament. E-sports viewers have their favorites and create parasocial 
relationships, but not at the same level they may with an individual who is explicitly interacting 
with the audience.19  
 
16  Sripanidkulchai, Kunwadee, Bruce Maggs, and Hui Zhang. "An analysis of live streaming workloads on the 
internet." Proceedings of the 4th ACM SIGCOMM conference on Internet measurement. 2004. 
17  Kaytoue, Mehdi, et al. "Watch me playing, i am a professional: a first study on video game live streaming." 
Proceedings of the 21st international conference on world wide web. 2012. 
18  Zhang, Cong, and Jiangchuan Liu. "On crowdsourced interactive live streaming: a twitch. tv-based measurement 
study." Proceedings of the 25th ACM workshop on network and operating systems support for digital audio and 
video. 2015. 
19  Kowert, Rachel, and Emory Daniel Jr. "The one-and-a-half sided parasocial relationship: The curious case of live 
streaming." Computers in human behavior reports 4 (2021): 100150. 
14 
 
 
The importance of a personal connection with a streamer is explained in “Social 
motivations of live streaming viewer engagement on Twitch." by Zorah Hilver-Bruce, et al.20 
Hilver-Bruce and her colleagues seek to determine what motivates live stream viewers to 
consume this specific form of media. The paper uses an established framework for analyzing 
motivations of social media which breaks down these motivations into eight categories: 
Entertainment, information seeking, meeting new people, social interactions, social support, 
sense of community, social anxiety, and external support. They then identify four measures of 
success specific to live streaming: Emotional connectedness, time spent, time subscribed, and 
donations. The idea is that some or all of the eight motivators could explain the data found for 
the four measures. In their research, they found that six of the eight motivators—i.e., all but 
social anxiety and social support—significantly explained at least one indicator of engagement, 
if not more. 
Hilvert-Bruce uses past established tools for determining social-media motivations to 
look specifically at livestreaming on Twitch. There has been a great deal of research on social 
motivations for most major social media websites, but none had previously centered on live 
streaming as a form of social media. By analyzing Twitch as a social media (rather than just 
media) Hilvert-Bruce and her coauthors capture the aspects of live-streaming often not offered 
by traditional media, such as live viewer interaction and real-time community discussion. 
Their findings are relevant to this paper as they not only explain why live streaming has 
had so much success in recent years, but also how and why viewers become invested in certain 
streamers. The information provided allows me to make research-based claims about the cultures 
of live stream fandoms and how susceptible they may be to political or social influence coming 
 
20  Hilvert-Bruce, Zorah, et al. "Social motivations of live-streaming viewer engagement on Twitch." Computers in 
Human Behavior 84 (2018): 58-67. 
15 
 
 
from a streamer or the community around them. The work of Hilvert-Bruce et al. clearly 
demonstrates the importance of the social aspects of livestream consumption, in contrast to most 
traditional forms of media. Therefore, the communities built by streamers must be more 
important to fans than communities less socially oriented, because the uniting factor is not just a 
shared love of the content, but a shared love of the community as well. 
According to research done on understanding characteristics of popular streamers on live 
streaming platforms, certain personality traits result in viewer growth, while others result in 
viewer decay.21 Initial hypotheses suggested traits like extroversion, openness, and 
conscientiousness would be advantageous, but results showed that they negatively affected 
viewer numbers. Instead, the most advantageous personality trait by a wide margin was 
neuroticism. Their findings paint the audience’s ideal streamer as someone who is perhaps 
unstable and prone to meanness, rather than a conscientious creator who takes the time to vet 
content they are producing or spreading. Research shows a positive correlation with novelty, 
meaning new and unknown content does better than a consistent focus on one subject. Research 
also found a regular release schedule was advantageous, allowing audiences to more consistently 
tune in. There is also a notable positive correlation with streamers who speak more during their 
streams, leaving less time to consider possible implications of what the streamer is saying. The 
research also found that the major motivators for increased output for streamers themselves are, 
perhaps obviously, social capital and monetary gain, both of which depend on how well the 
streamer can maintain their audience. 
Considering all these factors, it seems that live streaming is a field that encourages, and 
perhaps requires, a creator to produce content quickly, callously, and without checks and 
 
21  Zhao, Keran, et al. "Understanding characteristics of popular streamers on live streaming platforms: Evidence 
from Twitch. tv." Journal of the Association for Information Systems, Forthcoming (2019). 
16 
 
 
balances that may alert live streamers to the problematic aspects of content they are spreading. A 
streamer that is not on the cutting edge is not profitable, and a streamer who is not profitable is 
less inclined to produce more content. This, in turn, makes them less popular as their consistency 
drops. On the other hand, a streamer who is willing to discuss more novel, often sensitive 
subjects will find greater success, which will result in greater output, requiring even more novel 
content. In the pursuit of content that is both novel and entertaining, there will inevitably come a 
point where one has depleted the main-stream sources and must pull from less socially 
acceptable sources, like 4chan or other far-right spaces, to find content worth discussing. While 
it is not inherently harmful to discuss these things, the fast-paced nature of live stream creation 
means that audiences are often not provided the relevant context and are left to take whatever is 
being spread at face-value, unaware of the possible offensive origins.  
Similar research has been done on what motivators explain consistent viewership among 
audiences.22 This research, detailed above, found that entertainment, information seeking, 
meeting new people, social interactions, external support, and sense of community were 
statistically significant motivators for engagement. Each motivator has its own implications 
when considering the kind of content and streamers that consistently see the most engagement. 
Entertainment and information seeking are perhaps the most obvious motivators for content 
engagement, as we have seen that content which is entertaining and novel produces greater 
viewer numbers for streamers.  
Combining those motivations with the earlier findings on what makes a streamer 
successful, we can conclude that viewers find the more successful, edgier content entertaining, 
which may serve to normalize subjects or ideas that would not have been normalized without 
 
22  Hilvert-Bruce, Zorah, et al. "Social motivations of live-streaming viewer engagement on Twitch." Computers in 
Human Behavior 84 (2018): 58-67. 
17 
 
 
their being featured in these streams. Information gathering is perhaps a more worrying 
motivator here, as viewers will come to these streams seeking new information, only to be shown 
decontextualized bigoted content, unaware of the biased sources it comes from.  
The other social motivations: Meeting new people, social interactions, external support, 
and sense of community, have their own implications that are more complicated than the two 
already discussed. The majority of the motivators being based in social interactions means that 
not only are these viewers loyal, but they are inclined to maintain that community and the social 
engagement that comes with it. This makes viewers prioritize fitting into these communities, 
which may lead to the creation of echo chambers among these audiences. When a streamer 
platforms content based in bigotry, and is not critical of said content, ideas at the center of the 
content can be adopted by community members due to the need to be in agreement with the 
streamer and, by extension, the community. Even if the streamer does not hold these beliefs 
themselves, something very likely considering the rate at which content must be released, they 
are, in a sense, endorsing them by letting them go unchecked. Considering that openness was 
also found to be a negative trait for streamer success, it is likely many of these streamers are not 
sharing their actual beliefs for the sake of maximizing engagement, which leaves the socially 
motivated audience to piece together their own image of the streamer. This image, detached from 
the streamer's actual personhood, will be influenced by the content they share, meaning 
audiences are left with the conclusion that the streamer does hold these beliefs, and they may 
adopt them as well for the sake of the community. Once a community has established an identity 
rooted in bigoted ideas, it becomes advantageous for the streamer to feature more content 
associated with those ideas, reinforcing the audience’s image of them and sense of community as 
a whole. While this could, hypothetically, also apply to a left-leaning escalation, the fact that 
18 
 
 
conscientiousness was also a negative trait means that a more tolerant streamer likely will not see 
the same success as someone capitalizing on hate. It is also worth noting that controversial 
opinions are by definition less common than non-controversial ones, meaning there is some 
exclusivity in holding controversial beliefs, strengthening the sense of community among those 
who hold them. 
Overall, the nature of live streaming and what makes a streamer successful encourages a 
spiral of edgier and edgier content until a group identity is established, at which point the most 
advantageous move for the streamer is to lean into that identity. The content that is regularly 
successful means these groups often end up sharing controversial opinions, with more tolerant 
beliefs being less engaging while more controversial beliefs generate greater engagement, thus 
producing more group identities rooted in controversy.  
Now that we understand the motivations of both sides of live streaming in the abstract, 
the question is how does this manifest in reality? In order to answer that question, I will examine 
past examples of far-right content featured in live streams and how their features affected their 
overall popularity. 
 
19 
 
 
Research 
This section consists of three examples of memes that were popular with far-right 
communities before they gained mainstream popularity: “Wojak”, “caught in 4k”, and 
“fatherless behavior”. In order to show how migration can occur, I will document their origins, 
initial popularity, and spread in order to show how this migration can occur. By the end of this 
section, the reader should have an idea of how the content ecosystem functions and the possible 
consequences that can result from that process.  
20 
 
 
Wojaks 
 
Figure 1: A Timeline of Wojaks 
 
The lineage of the Wojak meme is complicated enough for its own project,23 but for the 
purposes of this paper I have chosen some of the most notable and recognizable Wojaks (an 
umbrella term for the images seen above) for analysis. The graphic above is a basic timeline of 
when and where these variants came from. Wojaks with a dark blue square line come from 
4Chan (or another Chan-related imageboard, including 8chan, Krautchan, Vichan, and 
Bunkerchan), Wojaks with an orange circle line are from Reddit, and Wojaks with a light blue 
 
23 Z. “Wojak.” Know Your Meme, Literally Media, 9 July 2015, knowyourmeme.com/memes/wojak. 
21 
 
 
diamond line come from X (previously known as Twitter). Each Wojak also has a border 
representing their purpose in the Wojak Comic format. Solid Black outlines are neutral self-
inserts, meant to be a non-judgmental representation of a regular person (often the poster 
themself). Wojaks with a red dashed outline are pejorative, created to insult a person or group of 
people. Wojaks with green dotted outlines are positive representations, not meant to insult but 
instead often placed in opposition to one of the insulting Wojaks.  
The original Wojak, also known as “Feels Guy” (the first image in the timeline above), 
was likely drawn some time in the late 2000’s, though its exact origin is currently unknown.24 
The first known appearance was posted on December 6th, 2009, but the poster later claimed in a 
Reddit AMA (ask me anything) that they found the image on Vichan, a Polish imageboard 
software, before popularizing it on Krautchan, a German language imageboard. In 2012, the first 
major variants were posted as a set to the r/4chan subreddit under the title “guess the country”,25 
featuring many versions of the “Feels Guy” sitting at a desk with various national identifiers. 
These variants ranged from oversimplified to outright offensive and were used primarily as a tool 
to mock posters from certain countries.  
For a few years, these remained as the only major recurring Wojaks, with people 
occasionally altering the original image to more aptly fit a situation (Giving him hair or an 
indicator of a certain job, etc.). In 2016, a meme known as “Nordic/Mediterranean” became 
popular on 4chan, in which people compared the two groups using drawings to paint their 
preferred side as desirable and the other side as ugly.26 The positive Nordic drawing, later known 
 
24  MScratch. “I Wish I Was at Home / They Don’t Know.” Know Your Meme, Literally Media, 7 Aug. 2014, 
knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-wish-i-was-at-home-they-dont-know. 
25  MazicFranco. “Country Feels.” Know Your Meme, Literally Media, 8 Oct. 2014, 
knowyourmeme.com/memes/country-feels. 
26  Philipp. “Nordic / Mediterranean.” Know Your Meme, Literally Media, 4 Sept. 2019, 
knowyourmeme.com/memes/nordic-mediterranean. 
22 
 
 
as “Yes Chad”, came from this, and has seen much greater longevity than other aspects of the 
“Nordic/Mediterranean“ meme. It would be a few more years before the “Yes Chad” became a 
regular part of the Wojak Comic canon, but once introduced it would quickly come to be one of 
the most popular elements used in these memes.27 This is the first Wojak in the Wojak Comic 
canon that is explicitly positive, almost never being the butt of the joke. It is worth noting that 
the term “Chad” as it is used in this meme is a phrase and idea sourced directly from incel boards 
and their ideas of the ideal man.28 
The next major Wojak, the Soyjak, came about in 2017 on the /pol/ board of 4chan (short 
for “politically incorrect”).29 With a wide open mouth, patchy hair, and a great deal of 
enthusiasm for whatever the poster wants to criticize, the Soyjak is a strawman anyone can use to 
make the other side of an argument seem unintelligent or childish. The use of “soy” here is in 
reference to the problematic and disproven belief that the comparatively high amounts of 
estrogen in soy may “feminize” men who consume it.30  
After this, popular Wojaks began appearing more often, with five more recurring 
characters appearing in 2018 alone. First was the “Withered Wojak”, a neutral Wojak meant to 
represent the poster feeling a deep sadness or dread.31 Next was the “Zoomer”, a Wojak meant to 
mock Gen Z culture.32 After this came the “Doomer” which was used similarly to the Withered 
Wojak but with a focus on functional depression rather than debilitating sadness.33  
 
27  Philipp. “Yes Chad.” Know Your Meme, Literally Media, 4 Sept. 2019, knowyourmeme.com/memes/yes-chad. 
28  Fatninjaskillz. “Chad.” Know Your Meme, Literally Media, 16 Mar. 2012, knowyourmeme.com/memes/chad. 
29  Swaggins, Bilbo. “Soy Boy Face / Soyjak.” Know Your Meme, Literally Media, 9 Jan. 2018, 
knowyourmeme.com/memes/soy-boy-face-soyjak. 
30  Messina, Mark. "Soybean isoflavone exposure does not have feminizing effects on men: a critical examination of 
the clinical evidence." Fertility and sterility 93.7 (2010): 2095-2104. 
31  Philipp. “Withered Wojak.” Know Your Meme, Literally Media, 31 Oct. 2019, 
knowyourmeme.com/memes/withered-wojak. 
32  Philipp. “Zoomer Wojak.” Know Your Meme, Literally Media, 20 Mar. 2019, 
knowyourmeme.com/memes/zoomer-wojak. 
33  Adam. “Doomer.” Know Your Meme, Literally Media, 19 Sept. 2018, knowyourmeme.com/memes/doomer. 
23 
 
 
The next Wojak from 2018, the “NPC”, became significantly more popular than other 
Wojaks for a time, with the NPC meme becoming so huge in far-right spaces that its existence 
became a problem across the internet.34 The NPC stands for “Non-Player Character”, a term 
from gaming which refers to characters controlled by the computer rather than a player. The 
NPC Wojak was employed to mock people who held more popular political beliefs, in this case 
anyone who was not as right leaning as the original posters. This Wojak will be explored further 
later in this paper. 
The last major Wojak of 2018, while less popular than the NPC, is notable in the history 
of Wojaks. Known as the “Art Hoe” (a term from Tumblr describing a certain aesthetic 
movement popular among left-leaning college aged women),35 the Wojak features orange hair, a 
choker, and a Yerba Mate.36 This Wojak was used largely in political compass memes, a Wojak 
comic format that placed different ideas or individuals on a four-section political compass. Her 
primary purpose was to mock liberal left-leaning beliefs.37 This Wojak is most notable not for its 
popularity, per se but because it was the first original and recurring female Wojak character. 
Prior to this, women were generally represented by drawing some long hair on an existing 
Wojak, so it is worth analyzing why this particular character needed to be its own illustration. 
Making a typically male Wojak into a woman, especially when representing left-leaning beliefs, 
often took on a transphobic subtext as well, so perhaps this change was meant to avoid that 
connotation as transgender identities became more common and accepted on 4chan. 
 
34  Don. “NPC WOJAK.” Know Your Meme, Literally Media, 17 Sept. 2018, knowyourmeme.com/memes/npc-
wojak. 
35  Frizzell, Nell. “#Arthoe: The Teens Who Kickstarted a Feminist Art Movement.” The Guardian, Guardian News 
and Media, 19 Aug. 2015, www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/aug/19/arthoe-teens-kickstart-feminist-art-
movement-instagram-tumblr. 
36  Sakshi. “Art Hoe Wojak.” Know Your Meme, Literally Media, 18 July 2023, knowyourmeme.com/memes/art-
hoe-wojak. 
37  GigaChad, Old Man. “Political Compass.” Know Your Meme, Literally Media, 18 Sept. 2016, 
knowyourmeme.com/memes/political-compass. 
24 
 
 
In 2019, the “Trad Wife” was created.38 Named for the Trad Wife movement, the Wojak 
represents the traditional western image of a perfect wife who is conservative, caring, and quiet. 
Often paired with the “Yes Chad” discussed earlier, it is the first female Wojak to be deployed 
positively by its users. Together the Trad Wife and Yes Chad Wojaks very clearly represent a 
conservative paradigm of gender norms that far-right communities idealize. 
Later in 2019, a left leaning imageboard known as “bunkerchan” created the 
“Chudjak,”39 a pejorative representation of the far-right 4chan users who created most of the 
Wojaks I have discussed so far. This is the first popular Wojak to overtly mock right-leaning 
beliefs. The Chudjak’s likeness is based on the perpetrator of the 2019 El Paso shooting, who 
frequented far-right image boards and posted his manifesto to 8chan, a largely bigoted board that 
was later used to help plan the insurrection on January 6th, 2021. The popularization of this 
Wojak resulted in a digital “raid” on Bunkerchan by 4chan users on October 1st, 2020. 
2020 saw the last major shifts in the Wojak comic canon before it spiraled into hyper 
specificity. The first Wojak from 2020 was the “Doomer Girl”.40 Filling a similar niche as the 
Doomer mentioned earlier, the Doomer Girl is more as an object of affection than anything else, 
giving the self-insert Doomer an idealized female counterpart who sees the world the same as 
him. The connection between the Doomer and Doomer girl is similar to the connection between 
the Yes Chad and the Trad Wife discussed above. This was the first major Wojak to come from 
outside of 4chan since 2012, being posted to reddit in early 2020. While still clearly beholden to 
the male gaze, this is the first female Wojak that is both positive representation and not explicitly 
 
38  Philipp. “Trad Girl / Tradwife.” Know Your Meme, Literally Media, 23 Dec. 2019, 
knowyourmeme.com/memes/trad-girl-tradwife. 
39  Papatoastie. “Chudjak.” Know Your Meme, Literally Media, 6 Oct. 2020, knowyourmeme.com/memes/chudjak. 
40  Philipp. “Doomer Girl.” Know Your Meme, Literally Media, 7 Jan. 2020, knowyourmeme.com/memes/doomer-
girl. 
25 
 
 
tied to conservative beliefs. Later in the year, a set of various black female Wojaks were posted 
on X.41 These featured diverse representation without an implied political message, clearly 
marking the new, non-conservative audience that the Wojaks had found.  
Famously, 2020 was defined by a global pandemic that saw much of society quarantining 
at home, which meant internet spaces became much more popular and important for social 
needs.42 People who were not previously invested in internet culture and the development of 
memes were suddenly much more likely to be exposed to them, and I contend that the current 
popularity of the Wojak comic format is likely due in large part to that shift. Another form of 
online media that saw a large boost in consumers during the pandemic was live streaming, with 
people filling their new-found free time with live stream viewing at a level previously unseen.43 
One popular genre of live stream is reaction content, in which streamers react to all kinds of 
online media, including memes. Wojaks ended up being featured in many of these live streams, 
exposing an even wider audience to their existence and furthering their popularity. 
From this point onwards, hundreds of new and specific Wojaks have come about, but 
almost all of them are based on the characters featured above in one way or another. Wojak 
comics have come to fill the niche left by rage comics, a similar format popular in the early 
2010’s,44 and are now popular and recognizable wherever memes are found.  
Wojaks, as a whole, spent most of their existence on 4Chan. 4Chan is infamous for the 
content and culture the site fosters, being one of the last popular websites that adheres strictly to 
 
41  Philipp. “Black Wojaks.” Know Your Meme, Literally Media, 22 Dec. 2020, knowyourmeme.com/memes/black-
wojaks. 
42  Alheneidi, Hasah, et al. "Loneliness and problematic internet use during COVID-19 lock-down." Behavioral 
Sciences 11.1 (2021): 5. 
43  Leith, Alex P., and Erin Gheen. "Twitch in the time of quarantine: The role of engagement in needs fulfillment." 
Psychology of Popular Media 11.3 (2022): 275. 
44  Sav. “Rage Comics.” Know Your Meme, Literally Media, 20 May 2011, 
knowyourmeme.com/memes/subcultures/rage-comics. 
26 
 
 
freedom of speech rules. They allow essentially any content (short of clearly illegal content) to 
be posted and remain on the various boards that make up the site. This has led to many fringe 
groups whose opinions are rejected or disallowed on other social media to conglomerate on 
4Chan, creating a culture founded on those beliefs. This includes groups like the alt-right, incels, 
and neo-Nazis, with a great deal of overlap between them. 4Chan consists of various boards with 
their own topics ranging from benign, like literature or music, to outright malicious, like the 
politically incorrect board, better known as /pol/, which is perhaps the most well-known board 
outside of the website. /Pol/ has consistently been home to the groups mentioned above, and is 
the origin point not only for some Wojaks, but for many memes and ideas popular among these 
far-right groups. While /pol/ is the worst offender here, the mentioned groups have a presence 
across the site and are at least heavily normalized if not actively posting on other boards. 
 
Figure 2: Original NPC Post 
 
The “NPC” concept, for example, actually came from the video games board in 2016, but 
the original post was full of rhetoric popular among the far-right. The NPC Wojak featured in the 
timeline began appearing in various threads across 4Chan on September 7th, 2018, specifically 
about a study that showed many people did not have an internal monologue. On September 10th, 
27 
 
 
2018, the NPC Wojak as well as the general NPC concept, were posted to X to more directly 
insult those the Wojak was meant to mock. By September 14th left leaning X users had 
identified the phrase “NPC” as a dog whistle. This, in turn led to thousands of bot accounts 
featuring the NPC Wojak as the profile picture to be created on X, but their growing presence 
was not widely acknowledged until October 14th, one month later. These bot accounts would 
post regurgitated, surface level democratic messaging to flood users’ feeds and mock left-leaning 
beliefs. Within days of their acknowledgement, the bot accounts were banned en masse, which 
sparked a new, albeit less popular, meme among the right which consisted of using the hashtag 
#greylivesmatter to lament their banning, mocking the Black Lives Matter movement and 
doubling down on the NPC “joke” in one fell swoop. All of this attention led to the meme being 
featured on the live streamed far-right show “Infowars” hosted by Alex Jones, in which he held a 
competition for people to submit the best Infowars-themed NPC meme. 
“Caught in 4k” 
 
Not every far-right meme has such a complicated history, however. Consider the “caught 
in 4k” meme. The phrase originated in a 2019 YouTube comedy sketch about a rapper getting 
away with murder, in which he is caught on camera committing his crime.45 The phrase did not 
become popular until 2020, when an X user posted a clip from the sketch in response to people 
discovering the identity of a famous gay youtuber’s secret boyfriend from his arm tattoo.46 Not 
only was this an outing, but it also implied that being gay is somehow wrong and deserving of 
being “caught”. While not initially offensive, the phrase took on a homophobic connotation after 
 
45  RDCworld1. “How Lawyers Always Get Rappers Off.” YouTube, Google, 7 Aug. 2019, 
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RcZsdgcEHk. 
46  Philipp. “Caught in 4K.” Know Your Meme, Literally Media, 23 Jan. 2021, knowyourmeme.com/memes/caught-
in-4k#fn3. 
28 
 
 
this incident. For much of 2020, this phrase was used to call out and mock anything perceived as 
gay. 
  
Figure 3: An Example of the “Caught In 4k” Meme 
 
As the meme grew in popularity and spread to other websites, this initial homophobic 
intent, while certainly still present, began to be diluted by more general uses of the phrase. From 
this point, the phrase became a part of a common internet vocabulary, used in many non-
homophobic contexts with no acknowledgement of why the meme was initially popular. Similar 
to the Wojaks, this meme’s journey to public appeal began during the pandemic and owes much 
of its popularity to its use in live streams. Specifically in the game Among Us, in which players 
must find one murderous impostor among all the crewmates on a spaceship. The game saw 
massive popularity during 2020 and was the most popular game being streamed for a few 
months. The phrase’s initial popularity coincided with the rise of this game, resulting in the 
29 
 
 
phrase being used frequently when catching the impostor, and being spread even further to 
various streamers’ large audiences. 
Unlike the Wojaks, “Caught in 4k” proliferated primarily on X before spreading to the 
rest of the internet. X is not an overwhelmingly right leaning platform, but there is certainly a 
far-right presence on the site. In addition, a strong culture of insults and internet conflict thrives 
there, often being the battleground where people online argue and escalate situations, both for 
their own satisfaction and for the engagement that comes with conflict and strong opinions. 
While homophobia is often acknowledged or critiqued in these interactions, that does not mean 
everyone is on the same page and, often, callouts are ignored or downplayed for the sake of 
comedy and entertainment.  
30 
 
 
 
Figure 4: An Example of Criticism of the “Caught In 4K” Meme 
 
For example, this post that features two men napping together being “caught in 4k” was 
criticized by X user yomiverse, receiving just over 200 likes. By contrast, the original tweet has 
well over 40k likes and most of the top replies are doubling down on the “joke.”47 Interactions 
like this allow phrases like “caught in 4K” to become new manifestations of homophobia or 
other bigoted beliefs because comedy reigns supreme. Often, the time it takes for the joke to die 
leaves room for the meme’s bigoted connotations to change before enough people can recognize 
their origins. This meme falls into that category, with the initial comedy of the phrase 
 
47  Shannonnn sharpes Burner (PARODY Account). “Bro Got Mad Because They Got Caught in 4K 
31 
 
 
outweighing political concerns until it became popular and unspecified enough for people to 
move on to more pressing, overtly bigoted memes that have popped up in the meantime. 
 
“Fatherless Behavior” 
       The last example that will be discussed in this paper is the phrase “fatherless 
behavior”. The earliest archived appearance of this phrase in its current context was an Urban 
Dictionary entry from January 4th, 2021, that defined the phrase as “When you weird as hell for 
no reason”.48 A later, more fleshed out definition essentially defines the phrase as an evolution of 
the “daddy issues” concept, an idea with its own misogynistic history.49 For decades now, many 
women and some others were accused of having “daddy issues” in response to rejections of 
conservative femininity or sexual purity. “Fatherless behavior”, like “daddy issues”, almost 
immediately began being used to mock members of the LGBTQ community, as well as any 
woman who does not fit traditional notions of femininity (Liberals, sex workers, etc.), claiming 
their identities are due to a lack of a strong male figure in their lives. Early spread of this phrase 
happened through normal processes, until the phrase was picked up by a selection of popular 
streamers who admired and often platformed the infamous and self-proclaimed misogynist 
Andrew Tate. This group included some of the most popular streamers of all time across all 
platforms, like Adin Ross and N3ON. Accusing internet users of “fatherless behavior” became 
much more popular after being adopted by these streamers, becoming a frequent sight in 
comment sections on TikTok, Instagram, and many other social media platforms to this day. 
 
48  Keller, Adrian. “Fatherless Behavior.” Urban Dictionary, Urban Dictionary, 5 Jan. 2021, 
www.urbandictionary.com/author.php?author=Adrian+keller. 
49  The exquisite wondernator. “Fatherless Behavior.” Urban Dictionary, Urban Dictionary, 3 Sept. 2021, 
www.urbandictionary.com/author.php?author=The+exquisite+wordernator. 
32 
 
 
 
Figure 5: An example of the “Fatherless Behavior” Meme 
 
Unlike the other two memes discussed, “Fatherless Behavior” was never really tied to 
one specific website, instead having a presence across various social media for as long as it was a 
popular meme. The site hosting the earliest archived use of the phrase, Urban Dictionary, is a 
crowdsourced website where anyone can post definitions for words or phrases not recognized or 
defined by larger institutions. While it does feature many bigoted or offensive entries, these exist 
more as reference than as actual content, and are not explicitly endorsed by the website or the 
poster of the entry. Urban Dictionary likely was not the actual origin point of this phrase, but 
wherever it was circulating before is currently unknown as this is the earliest version currently 
accessible. Its being posted there, however, does tell us that the phrase already had some 
popularity, but was likely still niche at the time. We know this because Urban Dictionary is a 
popular website and it does not take much popularity for someone to add a new phrase to the 
database, but posts with no basis whatsoever are easily buried, so “fatherless behavior” was 
likely somewhere between the two. While we cannot know all that much about the poster, the 
33 
 
 
original definition gives a usage example that reads “You gay asf on that fatherless behavior and 
shit”. Clearly here we can see that, even in the beginning of its popularity, homophobia was a 
major aspect of its use.  
This meme’s lack of a home website makes its spread somewhat difficult to track, but it 
can be connected with a specific group of streamers and their figurehead, Andrew Tate. Tate’s 
beliefs include the ideas that men and women are inherently different, it is a man’s job to be a 
strong leader, and it is a woman’s job to be virtuous and chaste.50 While not inherently bad 
things to be, his gendering of these traits is clearly misogynistic. His claimed beliefs here are also 
challenged by the ongoing sex trafficking charges he is currently being tried for in Romania.51 
Despite all of this, or perhaps because of it, many streamers chose to platform and uplift his 
tenets, with some even having him on their streams prior to his arrest. 
 
50  Tate, Andrew. “41 Tenets.” Cobratate, TopG, www.cobratate.com/41-tenets#tenet1. 
51  Franks, Josephine. “Who Is Andrew Tate, the Self-Styled ‘King of Toxic Masculinity’, Awaiting Trial in 
Romania?” Sky News, Sky, 4 Apr. 2024, news.sky.com/story/who-is-andrew-tate-the-self-styled-king-of-toxic-
masculinity-arrested-in-romania-12776832. 
34 
 
 
 
Figure 6: Examples of Commenters Using “Fatherless Behavior” 
 
This is the subculture in which “fatherless behavior” rose to popularity, and that can tell 
us quite a bit about the phrase's intended usage. Currently, the phrase still pops up in comment 
sections across the internet, mainly on TikTok and Instagram. Unlike the other two examples 
discussed, the meaning never really changed. It is still meant to say, “you are deviant from the 
conservative norm, and that is due to your lack of a father.” People are not regularly using the 
phrase thinking it means something else, it just has become so prevalent that commenters who 
say it are not being questioned or criticized the same way they likely would be if they were just 
bluntly sexist or homophobic. Rather than standing out in comment sections like most bigotry, 
the ubiquity of the phrase allows it to blend in as just another funny internet phrase. The 
normalization of this phrase has, by extension, somewhat normalized the beliefs expressed 
within it, and this can be seen by the sustained use of the phrase years after its initial popularity. 
The examples discussed above illustrate three unique but similar journeys of memes that 
originated or were first popular with far-right users before becoming common, popular, and 
35 
 
 
thereby normalized on the wider internet. The Wojak meme spent a decade on 4Chan, the most 
popular meeting site for far-right internet users, before becoming a successful non-political 
meme. “Caught in 4k” was co-opted from an unrelated video to mock queerness before losing 
some of its initial edge and then, again, becoming a popular non-political meme. The ideas 
behind “Fatherless Behavior” existed as a concept for decades (i.e. daddy issues) before 
appearing online as “fatherless behavior”. It was then bolstered by a group of streamers 
dedicated to misogynistic ideas who were so successful that the phrase bypassed regular checks 
and balances meant to halt offensive memes and became prevalent across the internet. What, 
then, do all of these memes have in common? Tacit endorsement of bigoted ideas contained 
within them. Many Wojaks remain offensive caricatures or borderline conservative propaganda 
(Yes Chad and Trad Wife) but are still being used regularly by people of varying political beliefs 
seemingly unaware or inconsiderate of their origin. “Caught in 4k,” despite having lost some of 
its specificity, is still regularly used in a homophobic way. Because it is considered a familiar 
and funny meme, however, genuine criticisms often go unheard or are outright mocked. 
“Fatherless behavior” is simply misogyny or homophobia packaged in an easily digestible, easily 
repeatable phrase, allowing it to generally avoid criticism because the number of people using it 
or ignoring it outweighs the number of people who are aware of what it means and want to 
criticize it. All three of these memes have managed to take far-right ideas about race, gender, and 
sexuality, and introduce them to the generally left-leaning social media most people frequent. 
We know what these memes are, and we have seen how they can spread, but why does it 
matter? These are irreverent jokes on the internet, so what is the harm? This line of thinking is all 
too common and a major part of why these memes are able to spread unquestioned. Currently, 
36 
 
 
meme culture is rooted heavily in irreverence,52 so attempts to take them seriously are often met 
with that same irreverence. There are, in fact, many reasons why this kind of humor and online 
activity are harmful as well as representative of changing attitudes in online communities. The 
internet is no longer isolated, and online happenings regularly have real-world consequences. In 
order to determine how far-right normalization may progress, I will go over the history of 
comedy as a political tool, and what we can learn by analyzing a community's humor.  
 
 
52  Górka, Marek. "The meme as an example of carnivalized internet communication." Kwartalnik Naukowy OAP 
UW "e-Politikon" 9 (2014): 215-242. 
37 
 
 
Irreverence and Indoctrination: How Comedy affects our Politics 
 
Comedy and Politics have a long history, existing for just about as long as society itself. 
In this time, both have changed and evolved in countless ways but have always remained 
somewhat connected. From jesters to stand-ups to memes, comedy has been a powerful tool in 
expressing a political opinion in a more digestible way.53 In this section, I will establish that 
history and discuss how it has changed in modern times, as well as how it has stayed the same. I 
will then apply my findings to the examples discussed above to understand the implications of 
their popularity and what consequences may follow if they are left unchecked. 
According to a 1985 essay by L.E. Mintz, every society has had a fool.54 While in 
modern times these “fools” are generally intentional in their comedy, historically fools have been 
those who are easily mocked: Developmentally disabled people, outsiders, anyone left 
vulnerable by whatever systems of privilege were in place at the time. If we consider modern 
culture, and especially internet culture, there are few groups more readily mocked than the far-
right. Their beliefs are generally unpopular and tend to crumble against any mildly researched 
argument. Despite this, they generally have a passionate insistence that their views are right. The 
thing about fools, however, is that their being vulnerable to mockery also offers some protection. 
If people see these those on the far-right as so absurd that they’re not worth taking seriously, it 
becomes very easy to miss when they are successful in spreading their message. Because of 
this ”protection”, it is all too easy to see some of the more blatantly problematic creations of this 
group and brush them off as niche ramblings of a dying political identity rather than take the 
time to consider the implications of something so problematic achieving such popularity. 
 
53  Olson, S. Douglas. "Comedy, politics, and society." Brill's Companion to the Study of Greek Comedy. Brill, 2010. 
35-69. 
54  Mintz, Lawrence E. "Standup comedy as social and cultural mediation." American Quarterly 37.1 (1985): 71-80. 
38 
 
 
These people are not quite fools in the historical sense because they are generally aware 
of and are responsible for their place in the overall culture, rather than having the role thrust 
upon them due to things they cannot change about themselves. Later in Mintz’s essay, he 
discusses various stand-up comedians and how they maintain some power while playing the 
“fool” role. Joan Rivers, he explains, created a self-deprecating comedic persona largely based 
around her not fitting into societal expectations for women. Many audience members, primarily 
men, laughed because they shared these ideas of an ideal woman, and found her comedy 
acknowledging those ideas to be funny. Many others though, primarily women, were laughing 
because Joan was mocking the very societal expectations she was discussing. While some found 
the routine funny because of what was literally being said, many others were able to look deeper 
into her jokes and find a message that was counter to what was being literally said. In this 
example, we can see that people on opposite sides of a subject can enjoy the same joke simply 
due to varying interpretations, and this is due in large part to Joan’s “fool” status. Opposing 
interpretations resulting in the same reaction can be observed in usage of the memes discussed 
earlier in this thesis, and perhaps more so. Online culture, and specifically meme culture, is 
marked by both absurdity and self-reference.55 When people use any of the examples previously 
discussed, there is an inherent comedy to the repeated use of the meme. When someone 
comments “caught in 4k” the first thought is rarely analysis of its use, rather it is an 
acknowledgment of a person’s familiarity with it and past uses they have seen. This results in 
people unaware of the meme’s origins laughing due to their knowledge of its existence, while 
others who are aware may be laughing because they have all the necessary context. Some people 
are in on the joke, others are not, but they laugh just the same. 
 
55  Owens, Jay. "Post-authenticity and the ironic truths of meme culture." Post memes: Seizing the memes of 
production (2019): 77-113. 
39 
 
 
Similarly, Mintz describes the comedy of Redd Foxx, in which he regularly discussed 
taboo topics regarding sex and relationships. In his routine, the audience was observed having 
two distinct reactions to a routine about the benefits of oral sex. Older audience members 
recoiled in laughter, looking at those around them to assure each other that the comedy here was 
based on the absurdity of the statement, while younger audiences laughed and cheered in clear 
agreement with the sentiment. Again, we can confirm that two very different interpretations of a 
joke can yield the same result. When exposed to the more blatantly offensive memes of the far-
right, some are laughing because of the absurdity, while others laugh because they agree, but 
again they laugh just the same. I have established that the same comedy can appeal to 
diametrically opposed groups, simply because most people assume they are in on the joke and 
that their interpretation is the correct one. Is an overly bigoted Wojak an absurd criticism of its 
original users, or is it an earnest mocking of a marginalized group? In the fast-paced culture of 
the internet, it can often be difficult to tell, and we need to rely on our own interpretation to 
determine what is what. 
Our understanding of comedy’s ability to be enjoyed by people on either side of a joke is 
incomplete without establishing who these sides may consist of and what divides them. In a 
paper discussing class and comedy, Sam Friedman analyzes individuals with Low Cultural 
Capital (LCC) and those with High Cultural Capital (HCC).56 Despite some research claiming 
that most people are now comedic “omnivores” open to all kinds of comedy,57 Friedman finds 
that there are clear distinguishers between the two groups. Firstly, HCC respondents had moral 
 
56  Friedman, Sam, and Giselinde Kuipers. “The divisive power of humour: Comedy, taste and symbolic 
boundaries.” Cultural Sociology, vol. 7, no. 2, 27 Mar. 2013, pp. 179–195, 
https://doi.org/10.1177/1749975513477405. 
57  Warde, Alan, Lydia Martens, and Wendy Olsen. "Consumption and the problem of variety: cultural 
omnivorousness, social distinction and dining out." Sociology 33.1 (1999): 105-127. 
40 
 
 
issues with “low class” comedy, disliking how brash and often offensive it is. LCC respondents, 
on the other hand, were more likely to acknowledge a perceived higher quality in high class 
comedy, but also defend their own tastes based on relatability. While this research was done on 
more traditional modes of comedy like television and stand-up, the ideas absolutely apply to 
online comedy as well. The cost of entry for the internet is generally low, with free internet being 
available in many places, so it has become a major meeting place for members of the working 
class. Upper class people use the internet as well but are able to do more in the real world 
because they do not need to worry about issues of cost as much as the working class does. This 
means those in power, generally upper class, are not as deeply ingrained in internet culture and 
are generally less interested in keeping up with it, meaning they may be unaware of how 
influential certain memes and online personalities can be.58 The working class, on the other 
hand, is responsible for the majority of meme culture, and are generally much more in tune with 
what exactly is occurring online. This means that those who have the knowledge to identify 
grassroots bigotry appearing in memes do not have the power to stop it, while those with the 
power lack the knowledge necessary to do something about it. We must also consider the culture 
of resistance among LCC internet users, which means any criticism coming from HCC users, 
even if in agreement with the politics of an LCC user, may be ignored due to prevailing attitudes 
on class divides often superseding beliefs on political divides. Left-leaning internet users may 
not want to hear from “liberal elites” even if they are in agreement, because class divides often 
take priority.59 
 
58  Lee, Lisa. "The impact of young people's internet use on class boundaries and life trajectories." Sociology 42.1 
(2008): 137-153. 
59   Fuchs, Christian. "Class and Exploitation on the Internet." Digital labor. Routledge, 2012. 211-224. 
41 
 
 
Returning to the idea of absurdity, it may also be difficult for a user unfamiliar with the 
culture of the internet to understand the layers behind a meme’s usage. Just seeing one of these 
pictures or phrases without context may not immediately reveal their bigoted nature, resulting in 
the meme being interpreted as having no deeper meaning and instead being funny simply 
because everyone has agreed it is, which is the case for many memes. Nothing about the original 
Wojak will tell a viewer it came from 4Chan, that fact requires some knowledge of internet 
history and the migration of memes, and that information is not always readily available. This 
means there are at least three different possible interpretations of the same meme. Right wing 
LCC users may laugh because of the blatant or latent bigotry in one of these memes. Left wing 
LCC users may laugh because they read the meme as satire, finding comedy in the perceived 
mocking of opposing beliefs. Finally, HCC users on either side who lack the context to fully 
understand the meme may laugh because it is absurd, which may be punchline enough to them. 
Having established the different interpretations that can be drawn from the same meme, 
we must now consider what could come of that. There are reasons why anyone, regardless of 
class or politics, can find these things funny, but what are the consequences of that? This section 
will analyze literature on how media we consume affects our politics and what that means for 
meme culture. In an article discussing online political parody and its effects on an audience, 
Amy Becker analyzes what forms of media result in higher internal political efficacy, which is an 
individual’s own confidence in their ability to engage in politics.60 The study found that 
exposure to traditional forms of network news and cable news resulted in greater internal 
political efficacy, while exposure to network comedy yields less internal political efficacy. 
Online humor, on the other hand, also had a positive effect on an individual’s internal political 
 
60  Becker, Amy B. "Playing with politics: Online political parody, affinity for political humor, anxiety reduction, 
and implications for political efficacy." Mass Communication and Society 17.3 (2014): 424-445. 
42 
 
 
efficacy. We can see that, despite comedy making people less certain about politics offline, 
online comedy actually strengthens a person’s belief in their abilities to contend with real world 
politics. The article also found that republican internal political efficacy is increased when seeing 
democrat-directed material criticizing republican beliefs, while this effect is not mirrored with 
democrats. This finding makes clear the issues with reclaiming meme formats designed or 
popularized by the right. According to the data, co-opting right-wing memes will likely only 
serve to strengthen right-leaning beliefs rather than hurt them. On the other hand, someone on 
the right co-opting a left leaning meme will likely see greater success in getting their point across 
and weakening the beliefs of whoever they are criticizing. Either way, participating in the same 
memes as those on the right only results in greater internal political efficacy for the right no 
matter who posts it, while it may have a negative effect for those on the left. 
We also must consider how likely it is that any of this online talk yields real world 
results. Obviously, an individual’s political opinions matter because they have a vote and can 
influence those around them, but one person’s beliefs among the millions in the US generally 
will not have a noticeable impact. What may, however, is further political action beyond just a 
vote or a conversation. According to another article by Becker, viewers of network television are 
much more likely to engage in “easy” political action (signing a petition, commenting on a 
politician's website or social media) if given a call to action by whoever they are viewing.61 
While the research did not study how a call to action would affect internet users, we can make 
some educated guesses based on research covered in the live streaming section in combination 
with the research detailed above. Firstly, Becker finds that much of the motivation for these 
network viewers comes from a sense of mutual benefit and agreement with the entertainer. 
 
61  Bode, Leticia, and Amy B. Becker. "Go fix it: Comedy as an agent of political activation." Social Science 
Quarterly 99.5 (2018): 1572-1584. 
43 
 
 
People heed this call to action not just because they agree politically, but because they are fans of 
the one calling them to action and have a level of respect for them resulting in their increased 
likeliness to act. The greater the feeling of connection with the entertainer, the more likely a 
viewer is to listen. This effect, I believe, is likely even stronger in the online communities 
fostered by live streamers. As established in the previous section on live streaming motivations, 
community and audience participation is a major factor in retaining an audience, even more so 
than with traditional media, so the effect of a call to action would likely be heightened. We have 
seen examples of this kind of communal political action before. For example, in 2020 Donald 
Trump boasted over a million tickets had been requested for his Tulsa rally, only for actual 
attendance to be below ten thousand. This was due to a TikTok campaign to reserve tickets and 
inflate expectations with no intention of actually attending.62 The ticket reserving was done in 
protest of Trump’s politics and happened organically as the idea spread around TikTok, being 
spread further by popular TikTok users. We can see that a concerted effort from united internet 
users can have real world effects, and few communities online display stronger loyalty than those 
of live streamers and their fans. 
While direct calls to action are not most streamers' usual fare, it is not unheard of. 
Around elections, more overtly politically motivated streamers tend to voice their opinion and 
encourage their generally young audiences to go out and vote. Sometimes, people like 
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other internet savvy politicians make guest 
appearances on live streams, further amplifying these calls to action. On the opposite side, we 
have the streamers discussed earlier who regularly platformed Andrew Tate and his ideology. 
These streams featuring Tate were often full of actionable advice and calls to action from Tate on 
 
62  Lorenz, Taylor, et al. “Tiktok Teens and K-Pop Stans Say They Sank Trump Rally.” The New York Times, The 
New York Times, 21 June 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/06/21/style/tiktok-trump-rally-tulsa.html. 
44 
 
 
how young men in the audience could improve themself, improve their finances, and identify 
“high-value women” to pursue. While less involved in traditional political action like voting or 
protesting, the behaviors encouraged by Tate often erred on problematic, encouraging young 
men to belittle those who did not fit within conservative heteronormative ideals and essentially 
harass women they desired. Not to mention that holding those misogynistic beliefs will likely 
influence an individual’s political leanings to better fit those beliefs. 
Another factor discussed in the Becker article and worth considering here is how entry-
level political action may affect an individual’s internal political efficacy. Calls to action were 
not shown to impact raising or lowering internal political efficacy; people are either interested in 
politics or not, but Becker posits that what may change that measurement is regular political 
action of any kind. She concludes that while a call to action may not make a person call their 
representative if that is beyond their usual scope of political action, regularly signing petitions 
and seeing change as a result likely will. Despite not having an initial effect on that person’s 
internal political efficacy, a call to action may result in someone doing something “easy”, 
making them more likely to do something “harder” than if they had not been called to action at 
all. In this way, these “easy” activities serve as a gateway into greater political action, and thus 
greater internal political efficacy. Internet users who simply see a right leaning meme likely will 
not immediately take on those beliefs and act on them, but seeing said beliefs echoed, 
encouraged, and normalized may, over time, strengthen those right leaning beliefs while 
weakening opposing views, steadily shifting online opinions towards the right. Minor as it may 
be, creating or even just interacting with politically charged memes is a form of political action, 
and the sustained usage of them can yield stronger action over time. 
45 
 
 
I have established how a person may be influenced politically by the content they engage 
with as well as what exactly is being said and who is saying it, but does this apply to memes 
presented on their own? Is being featured in a live stream enough for these memes to have a 
tangible effect on the viewer? Earlier in the thesis, we discussed an analysis of memes that 
utilized ideas from critical race theory (and by extension, critical humor theory) that found 
memes with offensive elements, whether they be blatant or subtle, still have an effect in 
normalizing those offensive elements regardless of how much context the viewer has.63 If a 
person does not understand the meme to be offensive, the offensive things about it do not 
disappear, they just become normalized. We can see this with the progression of “fatherless 
behavior”, which may seem like a harmless phrase if someone is unaware of the misogyny 
inherent to it, but still normalizes the idea that not having a father is in some way bad. Based on 
CHT, I can draw the conclusion that any of the memes featured throughout this paper have risks 
associated with their sharing even if they are not directly supported by the streamer sharing them, 
because anything short of overt criticism may result in a normalization of the problematic ideas 
contained within the memes. There are, of course, streamers and content creators out there who 
make a career of calling out bigotry online, with a so called “cancel culture” being pervasive in 
many online spaces, but they are generally less focused on memes that are subtly offensive, like 
the ”Wojak“ or “Caught in 4k”, and instead focus on more egregious breaches of online 
etiquette, morals, or even legality. This is where we find the other issue. I’ve established that 
memes, in general, are not taken very seriously. This is in their nature, they are meant to be 
irreverent and casual, but it has consequences when bigotry is part of that casual irreverence. For 
most people online who seek to call out bigotry, there are seemingly bigger fish to fry. Everyday 
 
63  Yoon, InJeong. "Why is it not just a joke? Analysis of Internet memes associated with racism and hidden 
ideology of colorblindness." Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education 33.1 (2016). 
46 
 
 
there are real neo-Nazis or fascists online spewing all kinds of hate, so something like 
the ”Wojak“ falls to the wayside as more pressing matters are handled. The trouble is the stream 
of new bigots is essentially never ending, and online culture never gets around to reckoning with 
how popular memes from the far-right are getting. This allows mildly bigoted ideas to approach 
normalization while attention is focused on more overtly bigoted content, slowly but surely 
having an effect on overall attitudes towards what is okay to meme about and what warrants 
criticism. Analyzing these memes through the lens of CHT, however, we can prove categorically 
that these memes are manifestations of bigotry, even if subtle, and generally progressive 
politically minded internet users should be avoiding their usage altogether, rather than engaging 
with them in a reclaimatory way as they currently are.  
 
Figure 7: An Example of a “Reclaimed” Use of the “Fatherless Behavior” Meme 
 
In the example seen above, we can see an X user calling Andrew Tate “fatherless” in 
response to a post from Tate detailing his tenuous relationship with his father. While 
47 
 
 
reclaimatory in nature, the implication here is still that Tate behaves the way he does because he 
lacks a father, which is the same point made in its original use. Even if turning out as a 
misogynist is very different from turning out queer, the central notion here is that the lack of a 
father makes someone into something negative in the poster’s eyes, which is the same misogyny 
in more obviously bigoted uses of the meme. 
Overall, these memes have political influence in a number of ways, ranging from slow 
changing of ideas to immediate calls to action. Downplaying the effects of this kind of comedy 
only heightens the results, and notions of memes being casual and unimportant are precisely 
what make them so powerful. The comedy here shields these memes from most of the criticism 
they would face if we stripped away everything except for the bigotry at their centers. 
 
48 
 
 
What’s The Punchline? An Analysis of My Findings 
 
Considering my findings so far, I can create a comprehensive analysis of how and why 
far-right memes travel, as well as the effects they may have on the wider internet ecosystem. 
Memes come about in a number of ways, but the one general constant is an organic beginning. A 
meme cannot be forced to happen, it must find an audience and spread through regular content 
circulation, meaning very few memes ever gain any kind of popularity. The existence of 
customized algorithms for individual users across all major social media platforms means users 
generally only see things curated to their tastes unless they go out of their way to see something 
else. This means each person’s experience of the internet is individual, which generally makes a 
meme’s popularity reliant on an organic spread across different internet subgroups. This process, 
however, can be influenced by creators with large platforms sharing and spreading a meme. 
While an organically popularized meme needs to be popular and non-controversial to be seen by 
millions of people, a streamer can take a meme of any size or political leaning and immediately 
broadcast it to their entire fanbase, massively boosting the meme’s popularity. While this may 
seem initially harmless as most memes do not carry much political weight or outright bigotry, 
maintaining popularity as a streamer requires a great deal of content, and specifically less well-
known content. By law of large numbers alone, the occasional bigoted meme is bound to be 
included in the huge amount of content needed to maintain an entertaining stream, but that is not 
the only reason one might be featured. Most memes that become popular completely on their 
own need to be somewhat neutral, appealing to users on any side of the political aisle, so the 
most popular memes are the politically neutral ones, thus making them less beneficial to the 
streamer’s success. At the same time, far-right online spaces contain a great deal of content that, 
almost by definition, is unknown to the mainstream. 4chan and other popular sites among the 
49 
 
 
right are rife with memes untapped by the wider internet culture, making them excellent sources 
for novel, interesting content. Content that was once niche is pulled from these spaces and 
presented to much larger numbers of viewers, generally without the context of where the meme 
originated or what the original joke was. When streamers reproduce far-right memes out of 
context the bigoted ideas present in the memes circulate unchecked. Then, as more and more 
people are exposed to the content without criticism or even the basic information needed to 
understand the concept of the joke, they become normalized and spread still further. 
The content we consume informs and influences our opinions and beliefs; this is true of 
everyone. Ideally, people consume with a critical eye, looking past the surface level to see what 
is really being said in any given piece of content, but this simply is not always the case. 
Nowadays, content is fast-paced, and this is even more true for online content. Everyday internet 
users see hundreds and hundreds of creations online, and there simply is not time to unpack 
everything, so things that seem less important tend to go unanalyzed. Of all the kinds of content 
users can consume online, memes are often seen as the form with the lowest stakes, due to meme 
culture being heavily based on absurdism and irreverence. Not taking it too seriously is part of 
the experience, which unfortunately makes it very easy to avoid criticism when posting memes 
with more bigoted intentions. This failure to think critically about the seemingly less important 
content we consume results in all kinds of ideas being normalized, bigoted or otherwise. The 
issue is that right leaning beliefs and the people who hold them are proven to be less affected by 
being exposed to opposing ideas, while those on the left are more easily swayed when seeing 
ideas counter to their own. These bigoted memes go unchecked for a variety of reasons detailed 
above and are allowed to proliferate as if they do not tacitly endorse bigoted beliefs. This still 
does not pose an immediate issue as simply seeing one or two memes that endorse bigoted ideas 
50 
 
 
will not singlehandedly radicalize someone, but sustained exposure over time combined with 
support from an online community can, bit by bit, shift an individual’s political beliefs and ideas 
of what political actions they are interested in. One of the most worrying aspects of this whole 
process is precisely that it is a slow boil rather than something immediate. Obvious and pressing 
examples of bigotry online are often quickly criticized and handled, but there is always 
something new to fill the gap left behind, meaning the problems that are more innocuous or 
slower are simply never addressed. Not only does this allow bigoted memes to spread 
unchecked, it heightens the effect as we have seen slow but sustained influence has a greater 
impact on how people engage in politics than brash and obvious political statements and memes.  
 
51 
 
 
Conclusion  
This paper has analyzed far-right memes, the live streams that feature them, and theory 
about comedy and its effects on political influence. Based on past research as well as specific 
case studies, I have found that memes popular with the far-right have been able to become 
normalized through their featuring on live streams and the decontextualization that comes with 
the increasingly fast-paced spread of content online. Using comedic analysis tools as well as 
political research we can see that, while this is a clear and present issue, it is also increasingly 
hard to detect, making it all the more important that consumers are aware of the methods through 
which these memes can become normalized. I have also found that the subtlety of this spread can 
have marked effects on an individual’s political beliefs over time, slowly but surely shifting 
online norms towards those of the far-right. 
 
52 
 
 
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