Description
This paper navigates and traces the racial and gendered politics of reactionary memes through an analysis of one of the more widespread digital memetic expressions of contemporary reactionary politics: “the cuck”. A derivative of the term “cuckold” referring to a man who is being cheated on by his wife that can be etymologically traced back to medieval England , the cuck meme began its popular digital circulation in the chaotic, reactionary imageboards of 4chan around 2014 during the misogynistic Gamergate saga. The meme later enjoyed its peak popularity during the electoral campaign of Donald Trump in 2016 with variations on the meme “cuckservatives” and “libcucks” becoming popular insults against political opponents in subreddits such as r/_TheDonald and in the wider memescape. The meme still widely resonates amongst “incel” (involuntary celibate) communities on Reddit as well as the wider “manosphere”.
While on the surface the meme refers to a simple “other-ing” device against those who are perceived as weak beta men, this paper, engaging with black feminist and Afropessimist literatures, contends that the particular mediatic circulations and variations of the meme gestures towards a more complicated relationship between race, enjoyment, and masculinity that haunts the political space of the memescape. In fact, it illuminates how a particular, historically situated mode of white, masculine subjectivity traverses the memescape in establishing and expressing a common reactionary sensibility resonating across personal, cultural, and political issues in composing a narrative of deferred and stolen enjoyment. It follows the cuck meme from pornographic anxieties about black men and white women to the Gamergate events of 2014, from international fears around migration to dissatisfactions of young wage workers. Through this examination, it asks: why does this particular meme resonate so strongly and widely amongst reactionary subjects?
