The silent power of memes
Key takeaways
- They are funny, provocative and sometimes tasteless.
- The short clip shows a penguin on the ice leaving its colony and waddling off alone into a seemingly endless frozen expanse — behavior that is highly atypical from a biological standpoint.
- Memes are now a permanent fixture of online culture that's here to stay.
Why this matters: an international story with cross-border implications worth tracking.
They are funny, provocative and sometimes tasteless. But memes are also powerful political tool, shaping our perception — usually without us noticing.
https://p.dw.com/p/5Cm MBCommunicating through social media memes is harming democracy, believes expert Wolfgang Ullrich Image: Daniel Chetroni/Visually/picture alliance Advertisement At the beginning of this year, a "nihilistic penguin" went viral. The short clip shows a penguin on the ice leaving its colony and waddling off alone into a seemingly endless frozen expanse — behavior that is highly atypical from a biological standpoint. The scene presents a tragicomic allegory open to multiple interpretations. The footage comes from a 2007 documentary by filmmaker Werner Herzog.
Memes are now a permanent fixture of online culture that's here to stay. They also play a growing role in political discourse — shaping people's perceptions and even opinions. This trend is particularly visible in the US, where an ever-expanding flood of memes has influenced elections since at least 2016 and permeated everyday life.