The vernacular history of Brexit through memes
This article proposes to read the memes produced around Brexit not as disposable jokes but as a form of vernacular historiography. Drawing on a corpus from two Reddit forums, r/Brexit and r/BrexitMemes, it examines how these collectively produced artefacts re-enact and comment on recent political hi...
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| Publicado en: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/osb, |
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| Autor principal: | |
| Formato: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Lenguaje: | Anglais |
| Publicado: |
Observatoire de la société britannique
2026
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| Acceso en línea: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Sumario: | This article proposes to read the memes produced around Brexit not as disposable jokes but as a form of vernacular historiography. Drawing on a corpus from two Reddit forums, r/Brexit and r/BrexitMemes, it examines how these collectively produced artefacts re-enact and comment on recent political history, from the May years to the post-Brexit aftermath. By reconstructing the chronology of events through memes, the study highlights how these visual forms compress public memory, build shared narratives, and turn humour into a tool of political reflection. Mobilising the concepts of performativity, counter-publics, and vernacular political learning, the article analyses the meme’s political function as a discursive, affective, and pedagogical act. Particular attention is given to Reddit’s technical affordances, especially r/BrexitMemes’s flair system, understood as a metadiscursive taxonomy organising circulation and interpretation. Ultimately, memes emerge not as peripheral entertainment but as active instruments in the making of contemporary political memory: a collective, polyphonic, and ironic narrative of Brexit, where humour, disillusionment, and civic learning intertwine. |
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