Images are part of the communication strategies of both the hegemonic powers and political activism. Images have recently been the focus of studies on social movements, highlighting the importance of visual activism in social media. However, the relationship between these visual narratives and mythological structures and how they operate to mobilize social change has not been significantly explored. This study analyses the role of environmental activism memes on social media and how, in anthropological terms, they can be understood as myths or narratives that offer a model for perceiving, understanding, judging and acting in the world. We draw from ongoing research into eco-influencers on Instagram, taking environmental memes characterized by binary oppositions of “before” and “after” as the study subject. This contrast establishes a temporal narrative and future prediction, involving a cause-and-effect relationship and a moral judgement of our actions. We argue that, in the case of the environmental meme, the myth-based approach helps in understanding its role in articulating the cosmic, social and personal orders as it brings human action into harmony with the cosmic order while projecting its images onto the human experience. Las imágenes forman parte de las estrategias y prácticas comunicativas de los poderes hegemónicos y del activismo político. Recientemente se ha incorporado la imagen al estudio de los movimientos sociales, destacando la importancia del activismo visual en las redes sociales y sus nuevas formas narrativas. Sin embargo, se ha explorado con menor profundidad la relación entre estas narrativas visuales y las estructuras mitológicas y cómo operan para movilizar al cambio social. En este artículo analizaremos el papel de las imágenes meméticas en el activismo medioambiental en las redes sociales y cómo podemos entenderlas desde una perspectiva antropológica como mitos o narraciones que proponen un modelo para percibir, comprender, juzgar y actuar en el mundo. Nos basaremos en una investigación en curso sobre los «eco-influencers» en Instagram, tomando como objeto de análisis memes medioambientales caracterizados por plantear oposiciones binarias entre un «antes» y un «después». Este contraste establece una narrativa temporal y una proyección de futuro, que conlleva una relación de causa y efecto y una valoración moral de nuestra acción en el mundo. Argumentaremos que, en el caso del meme medioambiental, la aproximación desde el mito nos ayuda a comprender su agencia en la articulación del orden cósmico, social y personal en cuanto armoniza las acciones humanas con un orden cósmico a la vez que proyecta imágenes del orden cósmico al plano de la experiencia humana.

Environmental crisis is one of the main issues on the current social, political and media agenda that has spread to citizens engaging environmental activism in many ways. This paper focuses on the emergence of a very specific type of environmental activism in social media that we named as “eco-influencers”. Drawing on our findings of an ongoing digital ethnography (Pink et al. 2016; Hjorth, Horst, Galloway, Bell, 2017) among Instagram profiles devoted to disseminate contents related to sustainability and climate change, our aim here is to explore some controversial issues regarding how they understand independence in relation to activism, lifestyle, consumption and work. We named these environmental activist eco-influencers as these profiles develop similar strategies as those that, according to Leaver, Hihghfield and Abidin as influencers are characterized by: 1) applying positive self-branding strategies, 2) managing their visibility 3) cultivating their community of followers adopting storytelling techniques consistent with their lifestyles (Leaver, Hihghfield, Abidin, 2020: 106). The fieldwork consists in participant observation in Instagram since July 2020 following the profiles through a collective research account to maintain interaction and expand our field site until we have an intentional sample of 60 profiles that allowed us to create a first typology and beginning in-depth interviews. In this paper we highlight some features that have been raised regarding their activity as activists and the very notion of “eco-influencer”.

La preocupación por la crisis climática ha generado un activismo medioambiental en las redes sociales liderado en buena parte por influencers. En este artículo se aborda la relación entre dicho activismo, el estilo de vida y las narrativas personales en Instagram a partir de un análisis de caso, la cuenta @vivirsinplastico. Se presenta parte de una investigación en curso de carácter cualitativo, cuyos resultados obtenidos nos permiten sostener, entre otros, que la figura del eco-influencer abre un nuevo modo de activismo social basado en promover determinado estilo de vida sostenible en el que las imágenes tienen un papel fundamental.

The aim of this work is to understand the role of parody characters on Twitter as drivers of digital narratives connected to ongoing crises. Using a paradigmatic case study methodology, we will focus on the hugely popular Spanish parody account @Coronavid19, where the virus, presented as a fictional character, has been offering a humorous chronicle of an unprecedented social and health crisis, from the early beginning and in almost real time. This case has been chosen considering its popular impact in terms of media repercussion and growth (almost half a million followers in less than a week), but also its peculiarities as a fictional character and a privileged chronicler in the first person. Our goal is to understand how this kind of fictional parody characters are built, how narrative and character traits evolve along time, and to observe to which extent they serve as a tool to cope with hard times, fostering collective empowerment, empathy and stressing official recommendations by mocking irrational behavior. We conducted a systematic extraction of tweets during nineteen weeks (n= 954 tweets) for analysis, plus a semi-structured interview with the author behind the account. Results point to a character-driven narrative with a transformation arc in an otherwise unpredictable plot, and where: (1) the threat is made tangible and vulnerable through humanization; (2) the bleakest implications of the pandemic are side-lined in the process; (3) there lies a tension between character coherence, relevance and the authorial ethical dilemmas faced in front an unpredictable, far-reaching crisis.

This article studies social perceptions of gig work and its conditions through the lenses of visual humour created and shared in digital environments. Food delivery services have thrived in cities, and riders – gig workers associated with such services – have become popular urban figures, easily recognisable through light means of transport and backpacks. These iconic elements have spread to forms of visual humour like memes and cartoons in social media. We aim to analyse the depiction of food delivery services and riders through graphic humour in digital environments, and its role as critical stances of gig work conditions. We draw from the literature on gig work, as well as critical humour in the workplace, approaching the phenomenon from the perspective of critical visualities and the memetic qualities of digital visual humour. Thus, we have conducted an analysis of rider memes, and carried out a focus group with Spanish cartoonists to better understand each form. From our analysis, we have observed that a) memes showcase less explicit critical stances but reflect a shared understanding of the hurdles associated to rider work; b) cartoons place riders in a contextualised, wider critique of platform economy and capitalism; c) while most graphic humour on riders takes an external, observational position, there is also an ‘inner look’ to the rider work, emphasising the promises and deceptions associated with the gig economy.