Two years ago, an internet meme featuring the movie Barbie depicted the doll from behind, and in the background, a pink mushroom cloud resembling an atomic explosion appeared, alluding to the 1945 atomic bombings in Japan.
The meme, which was part of the “Barbenheimer” trend, quickly went viral across social media, spreading to people and countries around the globe, and was largely seen as a harmless joke. However, while it was seen as a joke in places like the United States and Europe, it was perceived very differently in other cultures. In Japan, for example, the meme was considered highly insensitive to the 1945 tragedy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, prompting the Japanese branch of Warner Bros. to issue an official letter of apology, publicly condemning the meme.
This event highlighted two key aspects of internet meme culture: first, that memes can be interpreted differently across cultures, and second, that they are not merely harmless jokes, but can breed insensitivity to violence and tragedy happening in other parts of the world.
Internet culture has not significantly evolved or learned from this issue, as evidenced by the recent release of Squid Game Season 2 on Netflix, which has triggered an avalanche of memes revolving around violence. Some of these even glamorize the pink guards—characters who ruthlessly kill players in the series—by adding pink bow ties and calling them “cute,” despite their cold, menacing roles in the show.
With this kind of content dominating our screens, one must wonder: how long can we let internet memes trivialize violence in a world rife with real-world brutality? And how does this culture, which distorts the gravity of violence, impact our awareness and sensitivity toward the suffering in other parts of the world, such as the ongoing violence in Gaza?
Understanding the Different Types of Violence
How can a meme, just an image floating around the Internet, shape culture and our sensitivity to violence? To understand this, researchers identify different kinds of violence that can seep into culture, recognizing that there are two categories of violence: subjective violence (the kind we can see) and objective violence (the kind we cannot see).
Slavoj Žižek, a prominent cultural critic, tackles these two kinds of violence in his book, Violence: Big Ideas/Small Books (2007), which delves into the multifaceted nature of violence and its complex relationship with the surrounding social and political context.
In simple terms, subjective violence is carried out by a clear and identifiable agent, like a terrorist attack, an army, or a criminal robbery. On the other hand, objective violence is more insidious — it lurks in the background of everyday life, often going unnoticed. This type of violence is harder to pinpoint and tackle, as it can manifest in things like popular culture and the broader global economic and political systems.
For example, subjective violence, exemplified by the war on Gaza, is driven by a clearly identifiable agent—the Israeli government—and is visibly manifested in events that disrupt the normal order. However, this form of violence is not isolated or random; it emerges from a global system shaped by exploitation, racism, power imbalances, and centuries of colonialism.
In this context, visible acts of violence, such as war and terrorism, are not isolated incidents but rather symptoms of a deeper, systemic violence that remains largely invisible within the broader global culture and system.
Violence, therefore, does not always have to be visible; it can also be an invisible backdrop that is integrated into our daily lives. Over time, it can become normalized through the language we use and the culture we consume, often carrying with it racist, exploitative, and violent ideologies. This subtle form of violence desensitizes people to the more overt violence that eventually takes place.
The normalization of violence in global culture can be vividly illustrated through the storyline of Squid Game. The show unveils how a system can breed conditions where violence becomes a norm. The nature of the system is implied through elements like the competitive nature of the games, the financial struggles each character faces, and the pressure to settle their debts.
This pressure, rooted in a fractured global system, is felt by all the characters, pushing them to make the choice to kill other players in exchange for the possibility of financial liberation.
It raises the question: is the violence inherent in the characters themselves, or does it stem from the system that forces them into an impossible situation where death is the only outcome for everyone involved?
In line with Žižek’s theory, the answer is both: the show illustrates how the players internalize the violence of the system, growing desensitized not only to the brutality they witness, but also to the invisible violence—the fundamental nature and ideologies that underpin the system itself.
These two forms of violence feed into one another: as the players grow more accepting of the game’s system, they begin to kill one another more readily. This shift becomes clear in moments where characters kill without any external prompt, acting solely out of the pressure and mindset the system has ingrained in them.
The desensitization to violence extends beyond the show itself; it is also marketed to audiences through internet memes, which play a role in normalizing violence in popular culture and, in turn, perpetuating both overt and subtle forms of violence.
Internet Memes and Desensitization
Amid the ongoing violence around the world, particularly in Gaza, where over 45,805 Palestinians have been killed, making it the deadliest conflict of the 21st century, a common question emerges: are we, as a society, to blame for witnessing these events and doing nothing?
Many have expressed guilt over watching the violence unfold without being able to intervene. Yet, as Žižek argues, even if one is not directly causing harm or engaging in violent acts, people can still contribute to the invisible backdrop of systemic violence, becoming desensitized to its reality.
This invisible backdrop of systemic violence can be expressed through popular culture, particularly through internet memes. A meme, which was first coined by Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene (1976), is defined as cultural ideas that are spread within a culture, and are usually images or videos that often involve a disconnection from their original contexts in order to create a completely decontextualized message and meaning.
What this means is that memes shift the focus away from the disturbing or traumatic event, stripping away the context to create random, disconnected content. However, treating violence as something isolated and random, detached from the broader systems or root causes that fuel it, only serves to reinforce the very system of violence itself—one grounded in deeper issues like colonialism, poverty, and the oppression of marginalized communities.
While extensive research has already explored the impact of violent content in the media on desensitizing individuals to violence and normalizing violent behavior, what sets Internet memes apart is their ability to foster community. Memes gain popularity by reflecting collectively accepted ideas, as seen in the number of views, likes, and shares they accumulate.
Scholars suggest that this normalization of creating and sharing violent memes — regardless of their original context — as a mode of expression, can contribute to the broader societal desensitization to violence.
Today, despite the widespread violence across the globe, internet culture is flooded with memes that celebrate the apathy of certain villainous characters from Squid Game Season 2. These memes highlight not only the relatability of insensitive characters like Thanos, Player 230, with one video stating, ‘me if I was in a Squid Game’, but also how their indifferent, even humorous, approach to violence makes them likeable.
In one viral TikTok meme, Thanos is juxtaposed with other players who are still shocked by the violence around them. In contrast, Thanos not only enjoys the violence but is so desensitized that he willingly kills people, even outside the confines of the game. Despite his clearly gruesome nature, memes online often pair his character with pink flower emojis, lightening his portrayal against a backdrop of upbeat, cheerful audio, effectively trivializing his menacing persona.
These memes, by normalizing Thanos’ desensitization and indifference to violence, echo Žižek’s theory, illustrating that violence doesn’t always have to be expressed through direct, visible acts like terrorism or war. It can also manifest through internet meme culture, as the “meme-ifying” of violence in this context becomes a way of trivializing and desensitizing the underlying, systemic issues that fuel it.
The more one scrolls and engages with violent memes, the more the context of tragic events fades from collective memory. These events become decontextualized, shifting focus away from the real-life violence and brutality that persist in the world.
Just as the violence of World War II and the atomic bombings in Japan have been reduced to memes over time, due to their gradual fading from collective memory, one has to wonder if the war on Gaza will follow the same path.
In fact, this has been unfolding slowly over time. A recent study highlighted how humoristic memes were widely circulated during the 2014 Gaza war by Israeli WhatsApp and Facebook groups, alongside other websites. While some memes have aimed to raise awareness about the war, spotlighting the global system’s double standards, there’s a concern that, as memories of the current Gaza conflict fade, its harsh realities and deeper systemic issues may eventually be distilled into nothing more than memes.
In an age where violent imagery is so prevalent in digital culture, it is likely that the Gaza war, too, will one day be decontextualized and trivialized through memes, further removed from its brutal reality.
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