While researching the Ukraine Russian War, I couldn’t help comparing the different insults towards Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump in memes. At first glance, Anti-Putin memes make our Anti-Trump memes look like child’s play. Some of the Anti-Putin memes were created by Russians, which is risky in a country where outward expression is limited and even punishable if done in public. I translated a meme on Facebook. It depicted the Pope telling Putin in Russian, “Believe me, in your case suicide is not a sin.” America’s lampooning of Trump and campy SNL skits are tame compared to the severity of the sometimes literal gallows humor Putin is getting cyberslammed with.
Considering the level of evil in Putin’s military actions, it’s easy to see why he is receiving a thousand Kelvins of heat online. After Putin’s demands were not met with the Minsk Agreements, he invaded Ukraine to fight the Neo-Nazi militia, Azov, but also brutally killed innocent civilians in repetitious shellings. Millions of survivors were forced to flee Ukraine to bordering countries. Putin threatens nuclear war, and political leaders around the world are trying to prevent World War III. Vladimir Putin is giving hell, and catching hell for it - whether it’s from world leaders’ sanctioning or keyboard warriors sending mean memes. Warlord Putin makes Trump look like a crybaby.
With Donald Trump out of office, he seems benign by comparison, along with his memes. However, let’s not forget the detention camps overcrowded with illegal immigrants, some of whom were sterilized against their will. Trump ripped apart families, inspired closeted bigots, and then there’s the insurrection. So why are Anti-Trump memes weaker? These cyberpictographs don’t call for his suicide, just ridicule his antics. He’s usually depicted as a clown or a baby. On Trump’s juvenile side, he regularly had Twitter-tantrums, whereas Putin has no social media accounts. The underling who managed the “President of Russia” Twitter account stopped tweeting mid-March, most likely due to the bombardment of angry comments.
Out of curiosity, I accounted the thematic traits of memes for Putin and Trump. Jokes can be a coping mechanism during hard times. Each meme depicts a message of what the people think of a person or topic. I wanted to know which insults were the most common and compare the two hated public figures.
For Putin, I gathered data from his official “President of Russia” Twitter in the comments sections of the most recent four tweets during early June. The data included picture memes, gifs, and short video clips. The data for Trump was derived from a Facebook group titled, “Some Liberal Kind of Stuff,” which was created by a friend. Therein, I excluded any memes I created. At first I started from the most recent, but they were mainly centered around losing the 2020 election. Since Putin is slammed for the beginning of a war, I selected the memes from the beginning of Trump’s term. From there, I was able to gather memes with various traits.
For both Trump and Putin, I selected 100 memes, and I accounted the traits per depiction. One meme could have multiple messages. Since Trump is in the past, his pie chart is gray. Putin’s chart is colored since he is more current. The pie charts display the top ten themes in each set of 100 memes collected. The tables contain all the themes I observed while scrolling. The bar graphs show the number of messages per meme, and how frequently a meme contains multiple messages.
Meme Analysis: Vladimir Putin
Chart 1
The majority of memes against Putin referenced the Nazis, shamed his violence, depicted emasculation, and wished death upon him. Despite being a world leader, Putin is believed to be weak in character. The top five ideas conveyed make up 69% of the chart. The rest sexualized him, suggested Putin is gay, unpopular, a criminal in general, and also sent the simple message of “F&%# off!” The Ukrainian people want his military forces out of their country, and they make that point clear.
One out of the twelve death-wishing memes involved suicide. Putin’s legs dangle above his desk, implying he hung himself. Other deathly memes show Queen Elizabeth sending James Bond to assassinate Putin, Zelensky taking a funeral selfie with coffin-lain Putin, and Angela Merkel instructing Putin to walk into a grave.
Table 1
Some of the messages are simplified for the purpose of fitting into the table. Memes concerning Putin’s “Appearance” refer to his posture or height, whereas Trump’s appearance jokes are about his weight and small hands. Losing is specifically about losing the war, not any elections like Trump.
In addition to Hitler comparisons, three depictions likened Putin to Stalin, and two for the Anti-Christ. One meme compared Putin to Trump. In other memes, Putin is pictured as a dominant figure (Dom) over Trump. There are fewer of these memes in the recent comments on the Russian president’s Twitter account, in comparison to the Anti-Trump memes in years past. There are more depictions Putin as weak rather than dominant. Also worthy of mentioning is that there are more memes condemning Putin’s violence, and only two memes of Putin receiving violence.
Meme Analysis: Donald Trump
Chart 2
There was a wider range of messages conveyed in memes regarding the former US president. More than one fifth of the memes showed Trump as foolish, while 15% of the insults were sexual, and 11% concerned Trump’s alleged Russian ties. Despite all the Trump Baby balloons, only 6% depicted Trump as infantile. Only 3% showed Trump as being weak, compared to the 10% of Anti-Putin memes. Interesting to note, Putin is never infantilized in his memes.
Among the descriptions for Trump, there needs to be some clarification. “Foolish” and “Stupid” are understandably similar terms. I intend Foolish to be silly and clownlike, but not shown as a literal clown. The label, Stupid, refers to attacks on Trump’s intellectual abilities. The “Clown” category fits when Trump is depicted as a circus clown. A meme can convey a combination of these messages. Surprisingly, there are more clown memes of Putin than Trump.
The Anti-Putin memes had fewer Trump associations, probably since the Ukraine invasion is the main focus rather than a fading bromance. There were far more Anti-Trump memes involving this friendship, especially since the memes were older. Although homo-suggestiveness was not accounted in tallying the Anti-Trump themes, two-thirds of the memes pairing Trump and Putin suggested a homosexual relationship.
Table 2
A few abbreviations are simple to explain. “Gen” is short for general. “Wall joke” is just joking about Trump’s border wall. Then “BR” is short for bathroom, which leads to the labels that are more awkward to explain. The themes of “Pee,” “Excrement” and “BR humor” involve bodily waste and bathroom humor. Anti-Putin memes can be just as gross with the imagery of a dog defecating on Putin’s picture.
The most confusing label in the Anti-Trump table is “actually cool,” which itself causes hell to freeze, considering the meme is from a liberal group on Facebook. The one meme where Trump looks “actually cool” is when the Saudi leaders and Trump lay their hands on a glowing ball. It is epic but retains its Anti-Trump qualities due to the meme looking weird. With some fun editing, it could be a metal album cover.
Putin vs Trump: Number of Messages per Meme
Chart 3
Chart 4
In examining the frequency of messages, I observed that Anti-Trump memes can convey up to six ideas, but 48% are simplified with just one message. Anti-Putin memes are even less complex, with 62% conveying one idea, and two contained four messages.
A picture is worth a thousand words, but memes tend to be simpler. For Putin, the memes with the most themes are the viral image of Putin driving an erectile dysfunctional tank, and a lesser known meme of a talking airplane threatening to “eat your family!” Both convey an idea of weakness. The ED tank condemns war, and degrades Putin sexually with the limp tank barrel. The weakness is shown in body and the losing tank. The peculiar airplane meme conveys a dumb death threat, directed violence towards Putin as a comment, general weakness, and clownishness.
The Anti-Trump meme with the most messages was one of the most vulgar. It involved Trump and Kim Jung Un in the men’s room having a messy pissing contest. Themes included ignorance, war in the interpersonal sense, nudity, gross sexuality with the “emperors’ new clothes,” and the obvious pee and bathroom humor.
A meme with Putin and Trump together held a cluster of
meanings. A paternal Putin holds up his
Trump toddler. Trump holds up flowers
and a red flag emblazoned with the letters TP.
The T penetrates the P. There are
five motifs in this one.
Conclusive Thoughts
After four years of Americans comparing Trump to Hitler, Putin had over eight times more Hitler and Nazi memes about him, and it has been less than a year. Is Putin the next Hitler, or are people not objectively considering other historical dictators for paralleling his behavior? The most frequent concept in lampooning Trump was his foolishness, but he was also highly capable of evil. These memes reflect the complaints of the people. The world is hating Putin for his oppressive violence, while Americans just hate Trump for being a fool. Which combination is worse – dumb and evil, or smart and evil?
Resources used:
Facebook (2022). Some Liberal Kind of Stuff. [Private group].
Twitter (2022). President of Russia. [Russia government organization - verified].
Tweet dates: March 14 and March 15. Retrieved from: https://twitter.com/KremlinRussia_E
Notes: The memes from the header picture were from both resources used in this analysis.
-Twitter memes were collected in early June. Twitter comment sections shift over time, especially if there are thousands of comments.
