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Modern Popular Culture in Middle-Class Japan
  • ISSN: 2051-7084
  • E-ISSN: 2051-7092

Abstract

The article outlines the Taiwanese government’s strategy of using cute and humorous messages in its official communication via social media during the initial phase of COVID-19. Subjected to Chinese influence campaigns on social media, the government devised playful memes to ‘inoculate’ the public against disinformation and rumours. While the images contained important information, what made them appealing, memorable and spreadable as memes was their self-deprecating humour and cute aesthetics. Adopting the memetic logic of replication, the communication strategy devised such benign, non-aggressive humour as part of a broad, holistic approach towards improving Taiwan’s democracy with technology-assisted, consensus-based decision-making. This strategy entailed wider-reaching social effects. Informed by an analysis of memes as a genre of cultural artefacts, the article traces how government-sponsored cute aesthetics resonated in society through being shared, imitated and repurposed. For example, government representatives such as ‘digital minister’ Audrey Tang and Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung became memetic icons animated through fan art. In this realm of increasingly self-referential social intimacy, ordinary citizens and the government co-created not only munity to misinformation but also an affective munity of Taiwanese national proportions.

Funding
This study was supported by the:
  • Republic of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs
  • Boston University
  • European Association of Taiwan Studies
  • East Asian Journal of Popular Culture
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2022-09-01
2024-09-18
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/content/journals/10.1386/eapc_00073_1
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Panmemic inoculation: How Taiwan is nerfing the pandemic with cute humour
East Asian Journal of Popular Culture 8, 183 (2022); https://doi.org/10.1386/eapc_00073_1
/content/journals/10.1386/eapc_00073_1
/content/journals/10.1386/eapc_00073_1
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  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): COVID-19 pandemic; cute aesthetics; memes; memetic governance; online misinformation; strategic communication

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