ABSTRACT
This chapter sets out to understand the power of viral expression as a distinctive mode of emotional language in world politics. Using ideas from media theory and the philosophy of language, the chapter treats viral expressions as akin to digitally circulating bumper stickers whose political significance lies in both the message they deliver to an audience and the mimetic practices they elicit through circulation. While these emotional expressions are not new to the digital age, algorithmic filtering and distributed digital labor are accelerating and amplifying their impact. The chapter considers examples from Twitter diplomacy with Iran and North Korea ? including but not limited to that of Donald Trump ? to explore the impact of viral expression on the constitution of political community in an age of populism. These examples suggest that viral expressions both reproduce feeling structures and contain the potential to reconfigure them.
