That means, of course, organizing against our bosses and pressuring our political leaders to reshape the economy to work for the many, not snarking at the working people who spent years of their lives providing for us. With all this repetitive back-and-forth — seriously, there are bingo cards — it’s no wonder the most polarizing meme of the year is a two-word dismissal of the whole debate. Lockyer (2010) positions Vicky Pollard as a potentially progressive and transgressive character in that her appearance works against the postfeminist ideals of self-improvement. The anonymous creator of ‘loveofhuns’ uses incorrect spelling/grammar and leaves two kisses at the end of their sentence when celebrating Natalie Cassidy.

Their children will look at them and their infatuation with the latest bit of digital technology, roll their eyes and declare: OK zoomer. Framing something as ‘just a joke’ through irony is, as Rosalind Gill (2007) suggests, ‘“having it both ways”, of expressing sexist, homophobic or otherwise unpalatable sentiments in an ironized form, while claiming this was not actually “meant”’ (p. Using the Instagram account ‘loveofhuns’ as a case study, I examine three memes from this page to showcase how huns are represented in complex and competing ways.So if an older adult sees themselves as financially successful, respectful, and job-loyal, the study suggests they might be more likely to view a younger person as a financially irresponsible and insolent job-hopper. sits alongside industrialised image management and therefore has the potential to be resistant to or even destabilise the brand identity of an individual celebrity, it is progressively being deployed in a more self-aware manner, drawing on irony and camp and becoming part of the image-making strategy of celebrities. Viviana Freyer, staff editor of The Bi-College News, the student newspaper of Bryn Mawr and Haverford College, responded to these kinds of criticisms in an editorial, writing that "When it is our turn to take the heat from “ Generation Alpha” and whatever generation comes next, we hopefully will understand that this comes with getting older, and we’ll take the jokes with more grace than some thirty-something on Twitter getting overly defensive over side parts or cursive. That is, those who perform and operate in the realm of ‘feminine’ or ‘female’ television (as well as other mass media). As this article argues, women can be welcome in memes and rendered vocal, but this is complicated by the inherently ambivalent nature of humour directed at memetic figures who are often subject to public affection and hostility.

This ambiguity has led to ‘its appropriation to both conservative and radical ends, both to mock the weak and to provide a space in which to challenge and upturn social conventions that serve to stigmatise and alienate those marginalised by mainstream society’ ( Davies and Ilott, 2018: 6). Columnist Cosmo Landesman, writing for The Spectator, retorted that the Internet-heavy culture of zoomers lacked substance compared to that of the boomers, and would eventually be rejected by the children of Generation Z: "I suspect that future generations will want to stick the boot into the boomers too, but Generation Z will provoke nothing but a yawn.These have included: X-Factor winner Alexandra Burke, Northern actor Sheridan Smith, reality TV and Celebrity Big Brother star Kim Woodburn, the hosts of daytime women’s show Loose Women (ITV, 1999–), 2000s pop star Sophie Ellis-Baxtor, a plethora of drag queens and morning talk show host Trisha Goddard. A popular figure among young women and gay men, the hun is both excessive and seemingly ‘authentic’, with celebrities who embody this concept being emanant persons from the late 1990s and early 2000s ladette era. Thousands of viewers responded with "OK boomer" as "a sophisticated, mass retaliation" against the impact of past generations.

Given that memes are ‘powerful persuasive devices, transmitting loaded messages in their content under the guise of humour or jokes’ ( Drakett et al. Breakout stars from the 2010s, such as reality TV performer Gemma Collins, are also deemed huns in the British media landscape.This assumption bears similarities to the idea that women cannot be present and harness the power of visibility in memes. Audiences can forge new identities and create interpretive communities in online spaces where shifts in gender roles are appreciated. OK boomer,” which floated into the internet mainstream and rapidly gained traction this fall, is an attempt by millennials and Gen Z to both encapsulate this circular argument and reject it entirely. The meme is mostly used by young people on social media to respond to perceived condescension from older users – but it’s been touted as a way to understand why job and life prospects are constrained for so many young people.

Lauren Eglen (2020) similarly argues that it has ‘been employed as a symbol of rebellious respectability’.Through an in-depth analysis of these heterogeneous memes, this section will determine whether specific patterns of humour can be found on ‘loveofhuns’. In analysing these various media artefacts, this article examines the formation of the hun as a comedic memetic figure, particularly since the growth of new media has expanded how audiences interact with and consume celebrities. The moment that happened, I was ready to clock off early, pour myself a ‘secco, (and say) “my job here is done”’ ( Levine, 2020). Almost immediately, people rushed to sell OK boomer merchandise and attempted to trademark the phrase, and brands began to use it on social media — completely missing the inherent critique of capitalism that the meme enfolds, which led to more eyerolling. Rather than scoff at the relative privileges of a few, we should be trying to recreate some of the conditions that made life a bit better during the postwar years “boomers” were born into.