Meme Magic

About

“Meme Magic” is a slang term used to describe the hypothetical power of sorcery and voodoo supposedly derived from certain internet memes that can transcend the realm of cyberspace and result in real life consequences. Since its coinage on the imageboard 8chan, the fictitious concept has gained popularity on 4chan’s /pol/ (politically incorrect) board and been heavily associated with several in-jokes and shitposting fads on the site, including Ebola-chan, Baneposting and Donald Trump. Some have compared it to the occult concept of the egregore,^[11] an autonomous psychic entity which influences the thoughts of a group of people.

Origin

The earliest uses of the term can be tracked to March 2015, when the Germanwings Flight 9525 crashed while en route to Düsseldorf, Germany and several online communities started drawing parallels with the memorable plane scene from The Dark Knight Rises. The first use comes from a webm titled “Meme Magick”, created by YouTuber First Last (and reuploaded to his YouTube channel on August 6th, 2015), which was first posted on 8chan’s random board /b/ and later on the Baneposting board /bane/. The earliest archived reference to it is a post on /pol/ from March 26th claiming that /tv/ used “meme magic” to crash the plane.^[5]

Percursor

While the term was used in the past, it was mostly to refer to the spread of catchphrases or image macros, like the first archived example from a /mlp/ thread asking about the popularity of the catchphrase I Want to Cum Inside Rainbow Dash.^[1] Furthermore, several users refer to the “White People” Conspiracy Hoax spreaded in September 2014 in relation to the Ebola Outbreak from the same year as the first use of “meme magic”.

Spread

On May 10th, 2015, two 8chan boards centered on meme magic were created: /bmw/ (Bureau of Memetic Warfare)^[9] and /magick/.^[10] Since then, the expression has been used to refer to several happenings from the past regarding Internet memes, like the 2014 Slender Man stabbing (by the paranormal board /x/), the posting of the character Ebola-chan by /pol/ to make the pandemy stronger or the 2015 Umpqua Community College Shooting related to a /r9k/ post; and several tactics to use that power, like posting pictures or GETs. The term has also been associated to the Egyptian God of darkness Kek^[8] and a black-and-white photo of a man (shown below).

Various Examples

Winter-chan

Winter-chan is a female anime character created to be an anthropomorphic representation of the winter season. The character is used 4chan members to express the response of right-wing Europeans to those fleeing the Middle East in the European Migrant Crisis. The idea behind Winter-chan was to create a manga character who would be used to summon a cold and harsh winter in the way that the user believed that Ebola-chan created a more powerful epidemic. The harsh, cold winter summoned by the Winter-chan would be painful, or fatal, to those fleeing the Middle East.

Lemmy Kilmister’s Death

On December 28th, 2015, a thread about Motörhead‘s vocalist Lemmy Kilmister health was submitted on 4chan’s music board /mu/, being one of the responses “hell be fine”.^[3] A few hours later, Lemmy’s death was announced,^[6] leading to several jokes regarding that post on the thread being the cause of his death. The catchphrase “hell be fine” also experimented some spread on 4chan, mainly on /mu/.^[4]

Donald Trump

From June 2015 onwards, the term has been heavily associated to the bussinessman and 2016 United States elected President Donald Trump, with /pol/ users using the “meme magic” to make Trump win the elections and transform the country under a similar ideology. Several notable events include the posting of a Trump Pepe picture on Trump’s twitter (shown below, right) or the use of a Yiddish curse word to talk about Hillary Clinton, being consequently reported on a opinion editorial featuring the word “Oy vey”.^[7]