We Are (Not) the Virus: Competing Online Discourses of Human-Environment Interaction in the Era of COVID-19. Issue 3 (3rd April 2023)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Fine, Julia C.; Love-Nichols, Jessica
• Is Part Of: Environmental communication. Volume 17:Issue 3(2023)
• Page Start: 293
• Page End: 312
• Publication Date: 2023-04-03
• Subjects: Environmental justice -- climate justice -- coronavirus -- COVID-19 -- social media -- memes -- humor -- sarcasm -- parody -- slogans; Communication in the environmental sciences -- Periodicals; 333.7
• DOI: 10.1080/17524032.2021.1982744
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1752-4032

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Previous research has found that social media may be a particularly influential means of circulating ideologies about climate justice. In this article, we analyze social media discourses of universal human responsibility for pollution and ecosystem destruction during the COVID-19 pandemic, epitomized by the viral hashtag #WeAreTheVirus. We then examine three types of counterdiscourses that oppose misinformation and false universalization of human responsibility. These counterdiscourses include: (1) metadiscourses of ecofascism and racial injustice, (2) counterslogans that ascribe responsibility to systemic injustice rather than individual humans (e.g. "Capitalism is the virus, " "The system is the virus"), and (3) memes that parody the #WeAreTheVirus discourses (as in the sarcastic phrase "Nature is healing, we are the virus"). We demonstrate that the former two nonparodic counterdiscourses emerged in part in the comments of #WeAreTheVirus Tweets, while the parodic memes emerged in separate Tweets, which were a site of shared humor rather than controversy. We further demonstrate that, while both #WeAreTheVirus discourses and counterdiscourses have occurred relatively rarely since their period of virality and have broadened to a range of domains outside of human-environment interaction, counterdiscourses have nevertheless had a wide-ranging impact, increasing metadiscourses of ecofascism and permeating material landscapes through graffiti and signage.