ABSTRACT
During the COVID-19 pandemic, internet memes were a popular way to cope with stress and uncertainty, make jokes about the shared lifestyle changes imposed worldwide and generally act as representations of discourses about the unique experience of living through this time. In the UK, memes were a way for the public to express dissatisfaction and confusion about the government’s public health guidance to “Stay Alert, Control the Virus, Save Lives”. Drawing from critical discourse analysis and multimodal social semiotics, this chapter examines the design of a selection of “Stay Alert” internet memes, highlighting how meme-creators use image and writing to delegitimise the government’s pandemic strategy.
