ABSTRACT

Memes are showing up in posters all over cities, they are being used in billboard ads and they are making their way into, among other physical embodiments, handheld placards in political protests throughout the world. The opportunity to usurp memes for capital gains has not gone unnoticed by consumerist society, as is evident from their circulation on advertisement-ridden videos on YouTube to the manufacture of meme-related merchandise. Craftivism can be scaled up or down to fit the needs of each context it addresses, whether it's broad issues such as racial equality or the protest against the building of tram tracks in a specific part of a city. The Arthur Fist meme is one example out of many that engages with everyday politics; however, it is also a meme that has been used offline to explicitly address political issues.