What Authors Know About the Power of Words

Language—no matter how we handle it, try to control it, or share it—is powerful. In recent years, memes have emerged as a fragmented written and symbolic dialect of the internet; they have also become calls to action. In Meme Wars, three researchers analyze how the spread of trollish phrases and iconography online led to the real-world attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Those communications built up complex conspiracies, such as the idea that the election was stolen. In short, they created a story.