COVID-19 AS MEME GENERATOR: PANDEMIC NEWSPEAK INFLUENCING MEME CREATION

Abstract

The article is focused on meme-generating trends related to the COVID-19 pandemic, continuing a string of papers published on the issue of meme definition, classification and analysis. Based on modern European, American and Ukrainian research, this study is aimed at describing, analyzing and illustrating the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic and its ‘newspeak’ on memes generated in 2020-2021 by the general public. Memes are a prominent part of communication and are defined as the main unit of cultural transgression or succession. Despite the definition of meme being vague and non-consistent in various language studies, the idea of its semantic ‘capacity’ remains the same. The article redefines the notion of ‘meme generator’ suggested in previous papers and analyzes the fundamental works of scholars pertaining to modern memes. The author suggests a timescale of the COVID-19 pandemic in memes and illustrates the changing public morale and attitude of society to the unprecedented situation. Several examples of memes have been given to showcase their cultural specifics. The results have shown that the current COVID-19 pandemic has made a profound impact on meme generation during 2020-2021, as well as analyzed the change of public opinion during this period through memes. This study offers multiple prospects, such as further research on the influence of current events on meme generation, cognitive studies of notions having appeared with the ‘new normal’ and their influence on English language memes generated on the daily basis, and gives prospects for a further study focused on memes, their history, variety and function in modern culture.