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With the growth of the Alt-Right, Michael Richardson discusses the political influence of memes.

THAT moment when memes forego scrutiny.

Memes have developed in recent years to become an influential and mainstream medium. However, they have for the most part been responded to in a way that is passive and uncritical. Their power and influence is not widely acknowledged. Many define memes by their silliness and disregard the entire medium. However, this is not the whole truth. The reality is that we are living in a world where memes are a useful tool in the game of politics.

A meme is a virally-transmitted cultural symbol or idea. They usually take the form of captioned images that are intended to be funny. In 2016, many of the most popular memes were focused on the US presidential elections and the rise of Donald Trump.

The funny imagery of memes becomes potent when they carry a message. While there are no statistics for the number of people whose political views are informed by viral images that, for example, depict refugees as terrorists, the numbers of likes and shares suggest that the effect is significant.

The viral nature of memes has been exploited by various internet fringes and they have been transformed into political tools.

Over the last year, the viral nature of memes has been exploited by various internet fringes and they have been transformed into political tools. Meme magic is a term that originated on 4Chan, referring to memes that rise from the internet to have real-life consequences. To quote the message of one user on the website, We actually elected a meme as president.

Although it seems a ridiculous notion to suggest that Trump was carried to victory on the shoulders of millions of slick meme-imbibers, it is certainly true that they played a part. The lefts mockery of Trump through memes gave him a great deal of attention at the start of his campaign, and when the right responded with their own memes, what will go down in history as The Great Meme War began. By regarding Pepe the Frog as a hate symbol, the Anti-Defamation League acknowledged the power of memes. The events of 2016 transformed memes into a valid political weapon.

The fighters in the Great Meme War engineered Pro-Trump and anti-Clinton memes to gain as much mainstream traction as possible. They used platforms like Reddit and networks of fake accounts on Twitter to push the memes in front of as many viewers as possible. Users of 4Chan believe their efforts memed Trumps presidency from a far-fetched fantasy to reality.

Although the lifecycle of many memes begins and ends within the forums that create them, that does not render their effects void. This is often the case with 4Chan, which has always had an outsider bent. During the early 2000s, vehemently anti-George W. Bush, it became a hub for 9/11 truthers and for trolling religious conservatives. The leftist hacking collective Anonymous group was born from these Bush-era boards.

The boards also developed a culture of hard-core racist language; bigotry at first motivated by a desire to get a rise out of normies, but eventually fostering an environment where genuine racists felt at home. Former users have spoken out about how they were radicalised by the forums, how engaging with hatred and misogyny quickly made them more racist and misogynistic: like Pepe the Frogs boiling alive in slowly heating water. This may explain its support for a destructive outsider like Trump. This radicalisation of the vulnerable has effects in the political world.

By regarding Pepe the Frog as a hate symbol, the Anti-Defamation League acknowledged the power of memes.

Perhaps 4Chan users overstate their influence on the election, and Trumps victory is in a correlative, rather than a causal relation to their efforts. However, one should keep in mind that a guiding force in Trumps campaign was Steve Bannon, who brought a great deal of knowledge about the power of internet subculture from Breitbart News.

Former officials with the Trump campaign even reported that a team dedicated to monitoring social media trends were in contact with prominent users of r/The_Donald subreddit, a conduit from 4Chan to the mainstream internet. Trump encouraged the culture, at one point even sharing on Twitter an image of a Trump-like Pepe the Frog positioned behind a presidential lectern.

The medias handling of memes has also been premature. By taking ironic memes too seriously, and declaring Pepe a white supremacist symbol, alt-right meme-creators were granted legitimacy. They were also given something to laugh about, inciting a storm of #NotAllPepes in response. The premature response gave memes an undeserved status, and the trolls won.

Memes have become an influential political presence that has real-world consequences, but the deep-seated irony and destructive, outsider impulse makes them a difficult force to grapple with. Treat them too seriously and the internet responds with laughter. The media must discover an effective way to fight the influence of memes, so that the trolls do not win.

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Attack of the Memes - University Observer Online

A Donald Trump supporter holding a poster of Pepe the Frog, a symbol of the alt-right movement, at a campaign event in Bedford, N.H., Sept. 29, 2016. (Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

(JTA) What does the alt-right movement have in common with millennial slang words such as smackdown, slay and man bun?

Turns out they are all among the more than300 words or terms added to Dictionary.com.

The online dictionary, which announced the additions on Thursday, defines alt-right as a political movement originating on social media and online forums, composed of a segment of conservatives who support extreme right-wing ideologies, including white nationalism and anti-Semitism (often used attributively).

It lists the word as having been coined in 2010 by Richard Spencer, a prominent white nationalist, and as being a shortened version of the words alternative and right.

Spencer, a vocal supporter of President Donald Trump, has used a Nazi term Lgenpresse, or lying press to describe the mainstream media, and suggested that the media have been critical of Trump in order to protect Jewish interests.

Other politics-related words and phrases added to Dictionary.com include Black Lives Matter, an activist movement protesting violence and racism against African-Americans; burkini, the full-coverage Islamic bathing suit that was at the center of a controversial ban in France, and clicktivism, the use of social media to express support for various causes.

Dictionary.com isnt the only word reference tool that lists alt-right.The phrase was on the Oxford Dictionarys shortlist for top words in 2016, although ultimately post-truth was declared the international word of the year.

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'Alt-right' added as official term on Dictionary.com - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

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Venezuelas socialist government stripped its congress of power late Thursday in what opposition leaders are calling a coup.

Venezuelas Supreme Court ruled that all powers vested under the legislative body will be transferred to the countrys highest court. Venezuelas opposition legislators are calling this a coup, as the ruling effectively cedes total control of the country to the SocialistParty, and opposition leaders are now officially calling Venezuelaa dictatorship.

Nicols Maduro has staged a coup dtat, Julio Borges, leader of Venezuelas National Assembly and a major opposition figure, said Thursday. What this ruling means is that, for the first time, Nicols Maduro has all the power to enact laws, assign contracts, incur foreign debt and persecute fellow Venezuelans.

The Peruvian government broke off diplomatic relations with Venezuela over theruling, calling it an arbitrary measure that disrupts the rule of law and constitutes a breakup of the constitutional and democratic order.

Since the socialist government seized power, 75 percent of Venezuelas citizens have lost at least 19 pounds each amid serious food shortages last year, according to new research.This is largely because the poor economic policies of the socialist government have left Venezuela cash-strapped and unable topay for food importsafter years of mismanagement, heavy spending on poorly-run government programs, and lack of investment on its oil fields.

The countrys inflation rate is expected to top 1,640 percent in 2017, according to the International Monetary Fund. Inflation is leading to the countrys currency getting replaced by new cryptocurrency backed by memes of Pepe the Frog. Using these memes as moneygrants anonymity,making itharder for the government to control the tech industry. Others have noticed and started using digital money in place of paper money.

Venezuelans are living with the consequences of decades of socialist economic policies. Price controls, for example, forced businesses to sell food at low prices, encouraging farmers to sell on the black market or outside the country.

Venezuela has some of the worlds largest petroleum reserves, but the collapse in crude oil prices is cutting into state coffers. The country cant afford to pump oil at current prices, and as recently as February was forced to accept shipments of U.S. crude oil. The country suffers from rolling blackouts that can last for days.

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Venezuela Dissolves Only Non-Socialist Part Of Its Government - Daily Caller

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The idea of images of the popular green frog being rare started off as a joke on 4chan, where users would claim that their images of Pepe were rarer and more valuable than everyone elses. It escalated into people selling their collections of Pepe on eBay, with bids reaching up to almost $100,000 before eBay took it down.

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There were never any serious transactions however, with everyone involved enjoying the ironic humour of the situation. More recently, a group of redditors have been trading memes of any shape and size on /r/MemeEconomy, attempting to create a stock market in meme popularity. But, it turns out that rare Pepe collecting online is now a serious business.

Sometime last year, an unknown individual began issuing official rare Pepe trading cards using the Counterparty platform to link them to bitcoin, in an attempt to poke fun at another online trading game called Spells of Genesis. Today, these cards can be exchanged for the equivalent of thousands of US dollars on Counterpartys decentralised exchange.

This is due to a creation of artificial scarcity in the cards (as one would expect trading cards to have). Anyone canissue their own rare Pepes, but these are then verified by the official Rare Pepe Foundation, and linked to a certain piece of the bitcoin chain via a practice known as coin colouring. Whomsoever owns that particular bitcoin key address owns the Pepe associated with it. All verified rare Pepes can be viewed in a complete directory of them.

This is in particular use in Venezuela. Developers of a game called Rare Pepe Party that would utilise some of these cards have claimed that they are needed to keep their company afloat. Were based in Venezuela, and our business has been saved by bitcoin many times, the developer, who wished to remain anonymous, told Crypto Insider.

According to them, around 80% of offices in the vicinity of theirs have been closed down in the past year, with even the biggest businesses still around losing up to 90% of their employees. In that timeframe, thanks to bitcoin related business, weve grown our employee base from just 5 to 10 (were still a small company), said the developer. Weve air-conditioned our office. Year-over-year weve been improving, so were banking big on bitcoin and now over Counterparty assets.

However, bitcoin is not completely safe in the South American nation. Venezuelas equivalent of secret police, SEBIN, have been targeting people usingbitcoin and bringing them up on or extortion and bribes, especially bitcoin miners, according to the developer. Anything bitcoin related is a big no-no here at the moment this week I got wind of at least two mining operators getting knocks on their doors.

Jack Hadfield is a student at the University of Warwick and a regular contributor to Breitbart Tech. You can like his page on Facebook and follow him on Twitter @ToryBastard_ or on Gab @JH.

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Venezuelans Using 'Rare Pepes' and Bitcoin As Currency - Breitbart - Breitbart News

After the site published a post about the "Jewess" and her candidacy, a reader posted Schrode's contact information in the comments section. Over the past 10 months, her email and social media accounts have been polluted with a torrent of slurs and disturbing images.

Her tormentors are faceless. They hide behind screen names, in the shadows.

Andrew Auernheimer ( http://apne.ws/2nwjwFA ) says he is not one of them, but he applauds their vitriolic spirit.

A notorious computer hacker and internet troll associated with The Daily Stormer, Auernheimer scoffs at the notion that anyone can be harmed by "mean words on the internet." For him, anonymous trolling is a modern form of a generations-old, "distinctly American" political tactic.

"Being offensive is a political act," he said. "If something pushes up against polite civilization, it's for a purpose."

Auernheimer, whose anti-Semitic rhetoric matches the swastika tattooed on his chest, chuckled at the mention of Schrode's name.

"Why should I have any empathy? What's she ever done for me?" he asked. "I don't feel any empathy for any Jew anywhere."

Trolling is a calling card of the "alt-right" an amorphous fringe movement that uses internet memes, message boards and social media to spread a hodgepodge of racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny and xenophobia.

Troll tactics edged into the mainstream with the 2014 birth of GamerGate, an online campaign against feminists in the video game industry. GamerGate arguably provided a blueprint for some white nationalists and other extremists who rallied around Donald Trump's presidential campaign, flooding the internet with "Pepe The Frog" cartoons and other hate symbols.

The Daily Stormer's founder, Andrew Anglin, published a primer in August that attempted to define the "alt-right" and explain its origins. At the core of the movement is a "trolling culture" bred on the 4chan.org website, he wrote.

Anglin's initial June 3 post on Schrode the first of at least six about her linked to a Jewish Telegraphic Agency report on her bid to become the youngest women ever elected to Congress. A commenter posted Schrode's cellphone number, email addresses and links to her social media accounts.

The initial post called her a "hissing weasel." Today, a photograph of Schrode is the first image returned by a Google search for that term.

The attacks weren't limited to emails or tweets. She said somebody hacked her campaign website on election day, changing her name throughout to Adolf Hitler. She also said she received a voicemail from someone making a hissing noise.

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'Unreal when it targets you': Faceless trolls attack online - Salt Lake Tribune