{"id":2049,"date":"2021-10-08T10:27:22","date_gmt":"2021-10-08T09:27:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/digitalholocaustmemory\/?p=2049"},"modified":"2021-10-08T10:27:22","modified_gmt":"2021-10-08T09:27:22","slug":"why-not-so-serious-anne-frank-memes-and-digital-holocaust-memory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/digitalholocaustmemory\/2021\/10\/08\/why-not-so-serious-anne-frank-memes-and-digital-holocaust-memory\/","title":{"rendered":"Why (not) so serious? Anne Frank memes and digital Holocaust memory"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In this month’s guest blog, Juan Manuel Gonz\u00e1lez Aguilar and Mykola Makhortykh offer an analysis of the different types of Anne Frank memes circulating online. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Please be advised that this blog includes images that are offensive. They are included here for their importance in increasing public understanding of online Holocaust denial, distortion and trivalisation.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rise of online participatory culture<\/strong> has brought about significant changes in how individuals and societies engage with the past. By facilitating the creation and dissemination of content generated by ordinary users, this participatory turn enables more diverse and less top-down ways of representing and interpreting historical events<\/strong> (Jones and Gibson 2012<\/a>). However, the long-term effects of this transformation are yet unclear: while the importance of establishing more pluralistic memory practices can hardly be questioned, the digital-driven democratization of remembrance<\/strong> does not always deliver the expected results<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Internet Memes<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Internet memes are <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cunits of popular culture that are circulated, imitated, and transformed by individual Internet users, creating a shared cultural experience<\/strong>\u201d<\/p>(Shifman 2014<\/a>)<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Usually, memes take the form of an image accompanied by a (relatively) short piece of text that extends and offers interpretation of the visual part of the meme, often with the purpose of making a joke or otherwise entertaining the audience. To achieve this aim, memes commonly reiterate – and often remix – existing elements of popular culture, such as scenes from blockbusters (Figure 1a) or song quotes (Figure 1b).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 1. Examples of popular memes<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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Originally popularized by Richard Dawkins (1976<\/a>) in the 1970s, who treated memes as viral cultural units<\/strong> which ranged from catchphrases to religions, the concept of a meme experienced a comeback both in scholarship and everyday online communication following the rise of Web 2.0<\/strong>. This timing can be attributed to technological advancements, in particular the wide accessibility of tools for creating and editing digital content as well as the very nature of networked cultures<\/strong> that encourage creative adaptation and sharing<\/strong>. Under these circumstances, memes with their ability to endlessly re-appropriate new cultural products and quickly spread across the Internet became an epitome of \u201cvibrant remix culture\u201d<\/strong> (Xu et al., 2016<\/a>). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Besides their adaptability and virality,  the popularity of memes can be attributed to their strong affective potential<\/strong> which facilitates the use of memes not only for entertainment, but also for social commentary<\/strong> on matters ranging from climate change (Zhang and Pinto 2021<\/a>) to remembrance of traumatic pasts (Khoruzhenko 2020<\/a>) as Figures 2a and 2b show. However, the fact that this potential is often driven by humour creates a dilemma concerning the appropriateness of using memes for engaging with memory, in particular when it relates to the Holocaust.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 2. Memes related to climate change and atrocities\u2019 memory<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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Mediations of Anne<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

While existing studies on Holocaust humour<\/strong> (see, for instance, Steir-Livny 2017<\/a>; Demsky 2021<\/a>) demonstrate that this dilemma is not totally new, the popularity of memes amplifies its importance in the context of the ongoing debate on the long-term impacts of digital technology on Holocaust remembrance (Makhortykh 2019<\/a>; Walden 2015<\/a>). To address it, we look at Internet memes devoted to Anne Frank<\/strong>, an iconic Holocaust victim. Frank\u2019s story became widely known after the publication of the diary that she kept while staying in hiding during Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. The popularity of the diary together with extensive mediatization<\/strong> of Frank\u2019s memory in formats ranging from theatre plays to animated series<\/a> contributed to the \u201ccanonization<\/a>\u201d of Frank as both an archetypical Holocaust victim<\/strong> and, perhaps most problematically, a universal symbol of hope<\/strong>. Whilst the diary ends on a sentimental tone, Anne died at Bergen-Belsen a few days before liberation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 3. Mediations of Anne Frank memory: (a) Anne no nikki<\/em> anime (b), Anne<\/em> theatre play (both from Wiki Commons), and (c) Anne Frank\u2019s Diary<\/em> graphic novel<\/a> \u00a9 Images are included here under fair use policy.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

One of the consequences of the unique status of Anne Frank is the growing volume of online content devoted to her memory. While much of this content comes from mainstream memory institutions (e.g., Anne Frank House<\/a>), Frank\u2019s memory is increasingly mediated through user-generated content<\/strong>. Considering the importance of memes as a form of user-generated content that makes the process of remediating the past viral (Makhortykh and Aguilar 2020<\/a>), we aim to understand what happens with memory about this iconic Holocaust personality when it becomes a subject of internet memes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Analysing Memes <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To conduct our analysis, we searched for Anne Frank memes on seven of the world\u2019s largest search engines: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n