The Big Answer

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The Amazon blurb says that A global exploration of internet memes as agents of pop culture, politics, protest, and propaganda on- and offline, and how they will save or destroy us all.

Memes are the street art of the social web. Using social media–driven movements as her guide, technologist and digital media scholar An Xiao Mina unpacks the mechanics of memes and how they operate to reinforce, amplify, and shape today’s politics. She finds that the “silly” stuff of meme culture—the photo remixes, the selfies, the YouTube songs, and the pun-tastic hashtags—are fundamentally intertwined with how we find and affirm one another, direct attention to human rights and social justice issues, build narratives, and make culture.

"Hands up, don't shoot" is a fake BLM saying about Mike Brown's killing. This "Hands up, don't shoot" crap is from a lying witness—IT NEVER HAPPENED! Blacks in Congress and BLM know it's a fraud, but they keep the lie going to please their constituents: an act of sheer cowardice.

Mina finds parallels, for example, between a photo of Black Lives Matter protestors in Ferguson, Missouri, raising their hands in a gesture of resistance and one from eight thousand miles away, in Hong Kong, of Umbrella Movement activists raising yellow umbrellas as they fight for voting rights. She shows how a viral video of then presidential nominee Donald Trump laid the groundwork for pink pussyhats, a meme come to life as the widely recognized symbol for the international Women’s March.

Women ridicule Trump's crude speech about women, using pussyhats to highlight the point

Crucially, Mina reveals how, in parts of the world where public dissent is downright dangerous, memes can belie contentious political opinions that would incur drastic consequences if expressed outright. Activists in China evade censorship by critiquing their government with grass mud horse pictures online. Meanwhile, governments and hate groups are also beginning to utilize memes to spread propaganda, xenophobia, and misinformation [e.g., Orange Man Bad]. Botnets and state-sponsored agents spread them to confuse and distract internet communities. On the long, winding road from innocuous cat photos, internet memes have become a central practice for political contention and civic engagement.

Meanwhile, governments and hate groups are also beginning to utilize memes to spread propaganda, xenophobia, and misinformation [e.g., Orange Man Bad]

Botnets and state-sponsored agents spread memes and spybot flies to confuse and surveil and distract internet communities

Memes to Movements: How the World's Most Viral Media Is Changing Social Protest and Power unveils the transformative power of memes, for better and for worse. At a time when our movements are growing more complex and open-ended—when governments are learning to wield the internet as effectively as protestors—Mina brings a fresh and sharply innovative take to the media discourse.

“Shows how memes are so much more than an internet phenomenon . . . Incisive and illuminating”—Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

“This is a thoughtful and engaging look at the complex role and power of memes in global politics and social movements and a worthy addition to media and internet studies collections.”—Booklist

“This work is a first purchase that provides a thought-provoking examination of an important aspect of social media and digital communication.”—Library Journal

angry cat meme

“Memes to Movements: How the World's Most Viral Media Is Changing Social Protest and Power is essential reading. . . . An’s work demonstrates why we should be taking [memes] seriously.”—Jonny Sun, author and illustrator of everyone’s a aliebn when ur a aliebn too

“Brilliantly reveals how internet culture, social movements, and political agendas are intimately entwined . . . [Memes to Movements: How the World's Most Viral Media Is Changing Social Protest and Power] offers a critical intervention at a moment when the public is anxious about technology and political life.”—danah boyd, author of It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens

“A visionary and sweeping history of the internet phenomenon. . . . Whatever your thoughts about our digitized world, this brilliant and original book will challenge them to evolve.”—Paul D. Miller, aka DJ Spooky, author of Rhythm Science

No one does a better job than An Xiao Mina of tracing the deep connections between the inventive and playful culture of memes

“No one does a better job than An Xiao Mina of tracing the deep connections between the inventive and playful culture of memes . . . and political conversations among people who often lack other outlets for public speech.”—Clay Shirky, author of Cognitive Surplus and Here Comes Everybody

“Internet sleuth An Xiao Mina takes readers on a journey around the social media globe. Memes to Movements: How the World's Most Viral Media Is Changing Social Protest and Power is the quintessential guide for understanding the how and why of this social media phenomena. Mina is a voice for social change—and a voice of reason—in this visually overwhelming world.”—Alicia Eler, visual art critic/reporter at the Minneapolis Star Tribune and author of The Selfie Generation

Mina's understanding of the contrasting ways that social media operate in different countries means she is ideally placed to offer a global perspective on their growing social and political impact

“An Xiao Mina is a wide-ranging explorer of the frontier where technology meets social change. Her keen understanding of the contrasting ways that social media operate in different countries means she is ideally placed to offer a global perspective on their growing social and political impact.”—Tom Standage, deputy editor of The Economist and author of Writing on the Wall: Social Media—The First 2,000 Years and The Victorian Internet

To truly attempt to understand internet culture, one must occupy many places at once (now that's true multi-tasking!)

“As internet culture has moved from niche to mainstream, and as it has developed into an unprecedented global force, we’re evermore in need of incisive, clarifying work about what exactly we mean when we say ‘internet culture.’ It’s a rare thinker who can look at the internet as it actually is—a spectrum that runs from memes and image macros to social movements and sophisticated forms of political speech—and draw conclusions that include the richness of that spectrum without shying away from the humor and playfulness of the web. But An Xiao Mina is just such a thinker. To truly attempt to understand internet culture, one must occupy many places at once. Mina lives across digital spaces and cultures, and she brings that perspective and authenticity to all her work and now, finally, in book form with Memes to Movements: How the World's Most Viral Media Is Changing Social Protest and Power.”—Scott Lamb, VP of International, BuzzFeed

This book has seven chapters: 1) The Revolution of the Cat; 2) All About Feel; 3) Ahem, Attention Please; 4) Narrating Our way To Power; 5) Chaos Magic; 6) A Contest of Memes and 7) What Does It All Meme?, which is this reader's favorite chapter which has a section titled, Signs & Seeds with the quote "They tried to bury us. They didn't know we were seeds."

They tried to bury us. They didn't know we were seeds

An Xiao Mina tells us that Memes are analogues to genes in that they self-replicate, mutate, and respond to selective pressures. They are a viral phenomenon that may evolve by natural selection in a manner analogous to that of biological evolution. That is through the processes of variation, mutation, competition, and inheritance, each of which influences a meme's reproductive success.

An Xiao Mina tells us that Memes are analogues to genes in that they self-replicate, mutate, and respond to selective pressures. They are a viral phenomenon that may evolve by natural selection in a manner analogous to that of biological evolution

It’s unfortunate that the author decided to utilize this book, Memes to Movements: How the World's Most Viral Media Is Changing Social Protest and Power, for their own leftwing political propaganda, and it seems clear they are left leaning. It would have been so much better if it could have been neutral information and it’s such a pity that it’s so difficult to find anyone willing or capable of writing a book that is neutral and fair to both sides. You'd think that Biden and the leftist Marxists' wrecking of USA's schools, colleges, corporations, military, economy, foreign relationships, immigration, energy sector and reputation would have persuaded the author and everyone else that socialism is wrong for the USA, just like it is wrong for Venezuela—which it totally wrecked. But some people do not seem to be able to think!

This palace is where the Venezuelan leaders live, while the common people starve in slums, enduring hyperinflation (53,798,500% between 2016 and April 2019), escalating hunger, disease, crime and mortality rates, and mass emigration

"Propaganda warfare is increasingly shaping narratives, policies and lives around the world, notes Coda Story. If you’d like to read more about why people spread falsehoods online, read Eduard Saakashvilii’s article about a book – An Xiao Mina’s Memes to Movements: How the World’s Most Viral Media is Changing Social Protest and Power – which examines the real life impact of online behavior, Mariam Kiparoidze adds." (Source: As disinformation spreads, ‘microtargeting’ advertising tools may threaten democracy, DemDigest)

As we mentioned, it’s unfortunate that the author decided to utilize this book, Memes to Movements: How the World's Most Viral Media Is Changing Social Protest and Power, for her own leftwing political propaganda. Isn't it enough that the mainstream media make that same choice constantly, lying as needed and lying as much as needed. When they see a former president being attacked mercilessly by a weaponized justice department and Biden screwing up badly constantly, they don't even show the wisdom to get disturbed or embarrassed—they just ignore it.

And when the MSM covers for him and blames it on Trump or MAGA Republicans, they accept this mindnumbingly foolish nonsense and go on with their inflation cursed day. If it wasn't for Memes to Movements: How the World's Most Viral Media Is Changing Social Protest and Power having a foolish political perspective with a bit of insight about protests, etc., we'd call it a good book. As it is, it's a leftwing tome we'd neither care to read or remember, when vastly superior books like Levin's American Marxism are available to read.