What does this research mean for the field?

Humorous hate memes rarely produce uniform audience interpretations, predominantly eliciting ambivalence and multiple competing readings that remain consistent across different social media platforms. Novelty: ClaimNovelty.INCREMENTAL. Consensus alignment: ConsensusAlignment.NEUTRAL.

What question did this study set out to answer?

To examine how social media audiences interpret and negotiate internet memes that combine humor cues with hateful or exclusionary rhetoric.

August 29, 2026The Communication Review

Laughing it off? Humorous hate in internet memes and audience interpretive patterns

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Authors

YBYavuz Selim BalcıoğluDoğuş University EAErkut AltındağDoğuş University

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Implication

Mixed-methods content analysis reveals pervasive ambivalence toward humorous hate memes across social media audiences, highlighting humor as an interpretively unstable vehicle for online hostility.

Key Points

To examine how social media audiences interpret and negotiate internet memes that combine humor cues with hateful or exclusionary rhetoric.
Conducted a mixed-methods content analysis of 1,294 memes and 2,611 audience comments across five major social media platforms.
Applied Incongruity Theory of Humor and Social Identity Theory to examine publicly visible discursive stances rather than internal cognitive processes.
Identified four distinct audience interpretive frames: humor minimization, moral rejection, ambivalence, and non-evaluative engagement.
Ambivalence emerged as the dominant audience response, with individual memes routinely triggering competing interpretations.
Interpretive patterns remained largely consistent across different social media platforms and sentiment categories.

Cite This Study

Balcıoğlu et al. (2026) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/6a92995f8e5d7d1fc0c1133d https://doi.org/10.1080/10714421.2026.2723250

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Implication

Mixed-methods content analysis reveals pervasive ambivalence toward humorous hate memes across social media audiences, highlighting humor as an interpretively unstable vehicle for online hostility.

Laughing it off? Humorous hate in internet memes and audience interpretive patterns

Discussion

Member takes

Implication

Key Points

Cite This Study

Laughing it off? Humorous hate in internet memes and audience interpretive patterns

Discussion

Member takes

Implication

Key Points

Cite This Study

Also Consider

Also Consider