Following several hours of martial law in South Korea, the internet used memes to try and understand exactly what was going on.
It has been a wild 24 hours in South Korea. The country’s president, Yoon Suk Yeol, declared martial law and sent the armed forces into the streets of Seoul. Around six hours after this happened, the South Korean parliament unanimously voted down Yoon’s decision. This led to the president lifting martial law after only around six hours.
Now, this article isn’t about the political ramifications of this situation or drilling down into precisely what happened, there are plenty of other sources for that.
Instead, we’re going to be talking about how parts of the internet reacted to the news of South Korea’s brief foray into martial law — and the part that memes play in the modern consumption of news.What Happened Online During The South Korea Martial Law Crisis?
To start with a quick note: this article is looking at English-language posts, meaning the reaction will be more skewed towards the United States and Europe. The online experience in South Korea and surrounding countries is likely going to be different. With that out the way, let’s truck on.
There were a few threads of reactions to the South Korea martial law crisis online. One common type of post was using pop culture to express relief at the fact democracy prevailed:
Another thread were posts that used well-known meme formats to reflect and spread information about the South Korean situation:
One interesting theme found across the various reactions to the South Korea martial law crisis were posts that reflected the internet back to itself in a meta way.
