{"title":"Mittens and masks: Meme commentary on the covid-19 pandemic","authors":"Tracey Hayes","doi":"10.1016/j.compcom.2024.102910","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The Inauguration of Joe Biden led to the creation of the Bernie Sanders and his Mittens meme, which had a mask-wearing Sanders huddled on a folding chair (socially distanced) wearing his hand-knitted mittens watching the inauguration. Individuals and organizations crafted their own versions with Sanders (and his mittens) appearing everywhere from The Muppet Show to Da Vinci's painting of the Last Supper. These memes have a connection to the pandemic focusing on aspects related to the pandemic such as social distancing, mask wearing, and isolation. This article serves two purposes, the first uses humor theories and their functions combined with the rhetoric of intertextuality to analyze how these memes functioned and thus provided commentary about life during a pandemic. These memes provided stress relief using humor, but also united people, created community, and established an archive of the time during the pandemic. The second purpose applies the classical rhetorical canon to memes thus exploring how memes can be relevant tools for teaching digital rhetoric.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":35773,"journal":{"name":"Computers and Composition","volume":"75 ","pages":"Article 102910"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Computers and Composition","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S8755461524000860","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"Arts and Humanities","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The Inauguration of Joe Biden led to the creation of the Bernie Sanders and his Mittens meme, which had a mask-wearing Sanders huddled on a folding chair (socially distanced) wearing his hand-knitted mittens watching the inauguration. Individuals and organizations crafted their own versions with Sanders (and his mittens) appearing everywhere from The Muppet Show to Da Vinci's painting of the Last Supper. These memes have a connection to the pandemic focusing on aspects related to the pandemic such as social distancing, mask wearing, and isolation. This article serves two purposes, the first uses humor theories and their functions combined with the rhetoric of intertextuality to analyze how these memes functioned and thus provided commentary about life during a pandemic. These memes provided stress relief using humor, but also united people, created community, and established an archive of the time during the pandemic. The second purpose applies the classical rhetorical canon to memes thus exploring how memes can be relevant tools for teaching digital rhetoric.
期刊介绍:
Computers and Composition: An International Journal is devoted to exploring the use of computers in writing classes, writing programs, and writing research. It provides a forum for discussing issues connected with writing and computer use. It also offers information about integrating computers into writing programs on the basis of sound theoretical and pedagogical decisions, and empirical evidence. It welcomes articles, reviews, and letters to the Editors that may be of interest to readers, including descriptions of computer-aided writing and/or reading instruction, discussions of topics related to computer use of software development; explorations of controversial ethical, legal, or social issues related to the use of computers in writing programs.