Making Sense? The Structure and Meanings of Digital Memetic Nonsense

• In Event: Understanding Online Irony and Digital Play

Abstract

This paper offers the first systematic analysis of ‘digital memetic nonsense’ – clusters of seemingly meaningless digital texts imitated and circulated by many participants. We evaluated this phenomenon through two conceptual lenses: theories on nonsense in the pre-digital age and the techno-cultural conditions that facilitate contemporary formations. A grounded analysis of 139 nonsensical memes led to their typology into five genres: linguistic silliness, embodied silliness, pastiche, dislocations, and interruptions. An integrative evaluation revealed that if veteran forms of nonsense were often associated with a defiant deconstruction of meanings, digital nonsense serves as a playful social glue that bonds members of phatic, image-oriented, communities. This shift from an intellectual to a more communitive approach transforms nonsense from a reflection on ‘referential meaning’ to a generative source of ‘affective meaning’ that marks the formation of social connections preceding cognitive understanding. We conclude by highlighting the potentially subversive implications of this shift for participatory barriers and community membership.

Authors

• Yuval Katz, U of Michigan

• Limor Shifman, Hebrew U - Jerusalem