Authors

Giorgia Maurovich¹;  ¹ Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna, Italy

Discussion

The emergence of meme studies and the interdisciplinary analysis of memetics in the field of cultural studies demonstrates a growing interest in the disruptive potential of this form of communication, which is becoming increasingly linked to political phenomena such as the mobilisation of 4chan in the 2016 American elections or the creation of NAFO in the Russian-Ukrainian war. However, if the state of the art focuses on the negative and destructive implications of memes and online movements, what happened in Poland in 2020 with Strajk Kobiet provides an example of grassroots subversion, as well as authentic, full-fledged hyperstition.

The concept of hyperstition, originating in the thinking of Nick Land and Mark Fisher, indicates a change in reality by means of cultural fantasies, functioning not unlike a self-fulfilling prophecy that takes place in the replication and proliferation of such fantasies or beliefs. The mass uprising that began in October 2020 in Poland in response to further restrictions on abortion laws by the Constitutional Court had its own unique modalities, through the progressive negotiation and redefinition of the cultural canon and the coordination of street participation and online documentation and organisation. Such forms of self-organized agency, ranging from the use of replicable images and symbols to the use of literary, cinematic and cultural references well imprinted in the Polish consciousness, as well as the re-sharing of images, news and resources, made this protest a collective performance rooted in the nation's cultural substratum.

The cultural codes Strajk Kobiet made use of, from the common artistic references (scholars such as Marinelli and Rusinek speak of the so-called “literaturocentryzm” of Polish society) to their reworking and dissemination online in a dialogic, active and ever-evolving mode that mixes art, literature and the Internet, demonstrate how disruption can also occur in the digital flow, making hyperstition a subversive, creative and dynamic reality, effective in both Polish politics and culture.