WW3 Memes Spark Backlash And Controversy Amid Ongoing Russia-Ukraine Conflict Despite Appearing In Droves Online

February 25th, 2022 - 1:06 PM EST by Aidan Walker

1 comment | Contact Newsroom

Spongebob chooses between two sides of a book, one hilarious and one horrible, as tweets representing each position float around him.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine this week has spurred Western governments to issue sanctions and memers around the web to produce World War III memes en masse.

For the second time in two years (the first time in January 2020 following the killing of Iranian military officer Qassem Soleimani) the hashtag "#WW3" is trending on Twitter as users ponder the possibility of a draft, nuclear strikes, war with Russia and many other related topics. But, as with most gallows humor, not everybody online seems amused — and the WW3 memes have generated backlash despite their increasing presence.


On Twitter, the conflict in Ukraine has been discussed on the platform as both a serious matter and the source of jokes for the last few weeks, steadily rising alongside the increasing tensions. Because of the way the platform works, a meme takes up as much space on one's feed as a news story, and a joke hashtag can trend just as easily as a grave warning about a humanitarian crisis.

The first wave of WW3 memes, which trended yesterday, involved jokes about being drafted, the possibility of nuclear war or winter and Chief Keef.


Many of the WW3-related memes center around the juxtaposition between a lighthearted joke and a grim reality. The subject of many WW3 memes is also WW3 memery itself, and the combination of humor and horror that memers report feeling at the prospect of military conflict.


The backlash to WW3 memes has once again brought up the age-old question of whether it is appropriate to make memes in the middle of a war and whether those unaffected by that war have a right to make those memes. Many people opposed to such dark-humor memes allege that they're in poor taste or distract from real news. Others compare the backlash against memes about Ukraine to the backlash against memes about Iran in 2020 or even the COVID-19 pandemic, implying that the more muted response to WW3 memes about Iran could be attributed to the fact that Ukrainians are European and Iranians are not.



Obviously, memes are not filtered through institutions and editors like other kinds of current-event commentary, and so memers are not constrained by rules around taste, relevance or objectivity in the same way that journalists typically are. But as this latest round of WW3 memery shows, a vigorous conversation about what, when and why we meme is ongoing across the internet.

This is nothing new of course, as it happens time and time again dating back to 9/11 memes and beyond, so whether one agrees with it or not, the trend isn't going anywhere anytime soon.



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