Beyond Bardcore: Biography of a meme in ten translation

Abstract

This paper offers an unconventional analysis of a multimodal translation: a meme’s metamorphosis from September to November 2023 in ten different phases. Such phases are nothing other than translations, for they transform already existing meanings and forms into new artistic products. Also, this meme format draws on a music genre known as bardcore, whose will to render the world medievally and ironically is one of the key features of the phenomenon we address. In such a process, the meme ―either on Instagram or TikTok― explores various cultures, historical times, animal species, and other dimensions of our semiotic universe, to the point of turning the format into a meme of itself.