Dr. Prateekshit “Kanu” Pandey
Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at UC Santa Barbara. Through his research, teaching, and comedy performance, he investigates the role of humor, entertainment, and creativity in shaping how we imagine and enact our citizenship. He is currently exploring these questions with a comparative lens between the US and India.
Email: kanupandey@ucsb.edu
Dr. Daniel Lane
Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at UC Santa Barbara. His research and teaching explore how individuals and groups use communication technology to create social and political change. His recent work focuses on how technologies like social media shape political inequality.
Email: dlane@ucsb.edu
U.S. Election 2024
78. Momentum is a meme (Prof Ryan M. Milner)
79. Partisan memes and how they were perceived in the 2024 U.S. presidential election (Dr Prateekshit “Kanu” Pandey, Dr Daniel Lane)
80. The intersection of misogyny, race, and political memes... America has a long way to go, baby! (Dr Gabriel B. Tait)
81. Needs Musk: Trump turns to the manosphere (Dr Michael Higgins, Prof Angela Smith)
82. “Wooing the manosphere: He’s just a bro.” Donald Trump’s digital transactions with "dude" influencers (Prof Mark Wheeler)
83. Star supporters (Prof John Street)
84. Pet sounds: Celebrity, meme culture and political messaging in the music of election 2024 (Dr Adam Behr)
85. The stars came out for the 2024 election. Did it make a difference? (Mark Turner)
86. Podcasting as presidential campaign outreach (Ava Kalinauskas, Dr Rodney Taveira)
87. Value of TV debates reduced during Trump era (Prof Richard Thomas, Dr Matthew Wall)
88. America’s “fun aunt”: How gendered stereotypes can shape perceptions of women candidates (Dr Caroline Leicht)
Whether you are a news buff or barely pay attention, political memes were unavoidable in the 2024 election. Trendy jokes and memes dominated social media, portraying candidates in ways that ranged from supportive (“brat” and “coconut tree” memes for Kamala Harris, AI-generated memes depicting Donald Trump as a savior) to mocking (“I have concepts of a plan” memes about Trump, jabs at Harris’s laughter) and sometimes just bizarre (off-color “couch” jokes about J.D. Vance). About a week before the election, humor took a serious turn when a comedian at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally made a racist, xenophobic remark about Puerto Rico, prompting hesitant laughter. Criticism of the joke’s divisive tone was met with defensive pushback, with supporters dismissing it as “just a joke” and accusing critics of lacking a “sense of humor” who do not “get” insult comedy.
Popular speculation about the influence of political jokes and memes ranges from dismissing them as irrelevant to viewing them as a gateway to political mobilization. Nonetheless, little is known empirically about the extent to which people consume and engage with such humor. Are political memes and online political humor content consumed widely? Do people enjoy memes only when they target the opposing party, or do they engage with humor regardless of whom it targets?
In a survey of 2,500 American social media users in the months leading up to the 2024 election, the following patterns of political humor consumption and perceptions emerged:
Americans viewed political memes and funny videos, especially those about the Republican party.
Over 58% of the sample across political affiliations reported seeing funny political videos or memes on social media on a weekly basis, with over 31% reporting seeing them at least once daily. Similar trends were observed for online content mocking specific political parties, with both Democrats and Republicans reporting they saw more memes and videos about the Republican Party than the Democratic Party. Thus, online political humor about the Republican party seemed to dominate social media feeds across the board.
Democrats generally enjoyed political humor more than others, but Democrats and Republicans equally enjoyed ridiculing each other.
Across the sample, over 62% of the survey participants enjoyed political humor at least to a moderate level, with Democrats reporting higher levels of political humor enjoyment than Republicans. However, both Democrats and Republicans similarly reported a tendency to prefer jokes at the expense of the other party over their own. About 78% of the sample reported enjoying jokes about their own party at least a little, whereas about 85% enjoyed jokes about the other party. Thus, even though Republicans seem less open to political humor than Democrats, they tend to enjoy memes about Democrats just as much as Democrats enjoy memes about Republicans.
Democrats perceived greater polarization in how people enjoyed partisan humor.
Survey participants were asked to assess how other people might respond to partisan humor. Both Democrats and Republicans believed that jokes targeting a specific party or candidate are more enjoyed by supporters of the opposing party than by their own. This pattern indicates a “polarization” in humor perception, akin to the notion of affective polarization, which is the tendency of Republicans or Democrats to view co-partisans positively and opposing partisans negatively. Additionally, Democrats perceived this polarization in humor enjoyment to a greater extent than Republicans did, implying a greater tendency among Democrats to view humor preferences as divided along partisan lines.
Taken together, the consumption and perceptions of political humor and memes were deeply connected to partisan identities in the 2024 election. Both Democrats and Republicans expressed polarized perceptions of humor enjoyment, finding greater joy in jokes and memes ridiculing the other party. Democrats enjoyed political humor more than Republicans overall, with Republican memes—widely enjoyed by Democrats—being the most visible on social media.
This evidence makes it hard to dismiss political humor in the 2024 election as “just a joke.” In fact, partisan humor in the form of ridicule and insult against the opposing candidate seemed to have bolstered partisan group divisions. Humor can be less divisive when the source of the joke is willing to be as accepting of ridicule as they would like the “targets” of their jokes to be. Such an acceptance seemed absent in the 2024 Presidential election, where political memes and jokes were yet another tool to assert symbolic dominance over the opposing partisan group. Given its strong ties to political identity, it is imperative that we take seriously the influence of partisan humor and memes on voting choices and the overall tone of online political discourse.