This study investigates the sociopolitical function of humor that was created, shared and circulated on social media platforms during the Covid-19 pandemic in Greece. Our data, collected from September 2021 to December 2021, consist of internet memes created during the pandemic, regarding vaccinated and unvaccinated people and the discrimination between them as introduced by the health measures adopted by the government.
This is a qualitative research that specifically investigates: a) the social function of humor as a practice of categorization and social stigmatization, regarding vaccinated and unvaccinated people during the Covid-19 pandemic, and b) how inequality relations are produced and reproduced through internet memes in a specific crisis such as the Covid-19 pandemic. The purpose of our research, which is based on Billig’s (2005) version of superiority theory, is to identify the humor and specifically the practice of ridicule used among vaccinated and unvaccinated people, but also by citizens against the government during the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as the embarrassment caused by this ridicule which gives a sense of superiority to the person producing it and a sense of inferiority to the one who endures it.
According to our research findings, the internet memes released during the pandemic targeted the government for the measures that divided citizens into two social groups, the unvaccinated and the vaccinated ones, for their views and practices in relation to the vaccine, as well as the citizens who reproduced the social discrimination caused by the health measures. We argue that, memes allowed citizens to criticize and question the government’s handling of the pandemic by affording them a sense of rebellion, ridiculed the unvaccinated people in order to force them to comply with the norms of the social order they supposedly violated, ridiculed the vaccinated ones for the practices and motives that drove them to get vaccinated, and finally ridiculed the citizens for their conformity even to rules that divided them into two social groups.
In our study, a critical approach to humor is adopted and emphasis is placed on its negative, non-benevolent dimension, so as to incite us to reflect on the consequences of its use.