It is a common assumption that the world of internet memes is split into two opposing camps: the “wholesome” and the “dank.” One is sincere, positive, and safe; the other is ironic, edgy, and offensive. We tend to see them as opposites. This is a critical misunderstanding.
The “dank meme” subculture, while not inherently extremist, has proven to function as a “gateway” to alt-right ideology. Its cultural fixation on “in-group” signifiers, layered irony, and “lulz” (amusement at another’s expense) creates a state of ambiguity. This ambiguity is not an accident. It is a strategically exploited “bridge” that allows extremist groups to launder their bigotry into the mainstream under the guise of “just a joke.”
1. What is a “Dank Meme”? (Defining the In-Group)
To understand the gateway, we must first define the term. A “dank meme” is not just an edgy joke; it is a “meta-memetic label”. Writing in 2018, Miltner cites Know Your Meme’s definition of “dank meme” as “an ironic expression used to mock online viral media and in-jokes that have exhausted their comedic value to the point of being trite or cliché”.
This is a social function, not just an aesthetic. The core value of a “dank meme” is its irony. Its purpose is to create a clear boundary between an in-group (those who “get” the layers of irony) and an out-group (the “normies” who take the meme at face value). This very act of boundary-setting, of celebrating an exclusive “in-group” knowledge, is the first critical step on the bridge.
2. The Bridge Quantified: The Henn Finding
This “bridge” is not just a theory; it is a measurable, quantifiable “cultural diffusion”. A 2024 paper by Theresa Henn, “Follow the Memeing,” provides the data.
Henn used a visual-matching algorithm to compare the “meme languages” (the set of shared visual templates, or “meme families”) of different subreddits from December 2016. The findings are staggering.
- When comparing the “dank” mainstream (r/dankmemes) to the “wholesome” mainstream (r/wholesomememes), the study found they shared 11 common “meme families”.
- When comparing that same “dank” sub (r/dankmemes) to the major alt-right hub (r/The_Donald), the study found they also shared 11 common “meme families”.
- For comparison, r/dankmemes shared only 6 common families with the more general r/memes.
This data is the smoking gun. It proves that the “dank” subculture, while classified as “mainstream,” was statistically as close in its visual language to a major alt-right community as it was to its “wholesome” counterpart. Henn’s paper reveals a tangible “cultural resemblance” —the bridge, in plain sight.
3. The Mechanism: Weaponized Irony
If Henn’s data shows that the bridge exists, the work of Ryan Milner and Whitney Phillips shows how it was built—and that its construction was deliberate.
In their 2020 paper “Tilling Bigoted Lands, Sowing Bigoted Seeds,” Milner and Phillips explain that the modern alt-right’s aesthetic is “predicated on irony and lulz”. This is a conscious strategy. The authors cite the leaked Daily Stormer style guide, a playbook for an “alt-right” white supremacist website.
The guide explicitly instructs its followers to:
- “Hijack existing memes”
- “Lean heavily on humour”
- Employ “the rhetoric of trolling as often as possible”
The rationale is as cynical as it is effective. The guide’s author explains that “funny memes” are “familiar and fun and naturally lower their audience’s critical defences”. The goal is to “launder white nationalism into the mainstream” by making it look like the “dank” content people already consume. The guide concludes that “racist jokes plant the seeds for racist beliefs”.
This is the mechanism. The alt-right weaponizes the “dank” aesthetic. They want their propaganda to be mistaken for an edgy, ironic meme because it “launders” the bigotry and makes it deniable.
4. The Theory: Ambivalence as a Vulnerability
Why is this strategy so effective? The answer lies in the central thesis of Milner and Phillips’s book, The Ambivalent Internet.
“Ambivalence” here does not mean indifference. It means the co-existence of “strong tension between opposing forces.” The “vernacular creativity” of the internet is inherently ambivalent; the same action can be both “generative or destructive,” both “play and hate,” often at the same time.
The “dank” subculture lives in this ambiguity. The alt-right simply exploits it.
Milner and Phillips (2020) show this in practice by describing “troll-trained” journalists and users—those raised on the “lol-nothing-matters ethos” of early internet culture. When these users encountered the alt-right’s weaponized memes, they “assumed that the memes and jokes… were satirical” . They couldn’t see the threat because it was perfectly camouflaged in a visual language they already associated with “internet culture as usual”.
The gateway works because the “just a joke” ambiguity provides perfect plausible deniability. The alt-right’s hate (antagonism) is successfully disguised as play (mischief).
Conclusion: The Function of “Just a Joke”
The “dank meme” subculture is not an alt-right movement, but it is the perfect recruiting ground. The irony and ambiguity it champions are not a sign of its strength, but its most profound vulnerability.
The path from dank to dark is a clear one:
- Henn (2024) provides the quantitative data, proving the existence of the bridge.
- Milner & Phillips (2020) reveal the deliberate construction of that bridge by extremist groups.
- Miltner (2018) and Milner & Phillips’ work on ambivalence provide the theoretical explanation for why that bridge is so stable.
The gateway functions by weaponizing the “in-group” vs. “out-group” dynamic. The alt-right presents its bigotry as just another ironic “in-joke.” They invite you to “get the joke.” By the time you’ve laughed along, you’re already across the bridge.
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References
Henn, Theresa, “Follow the Memeing: Analyzing the Cultural Diffusion Between Mainstream and Alt-Right Communities Based on Shared Memes” (2024). ECIS 2024 Proceedings. 11.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/ecis2024/track24_socialmedia/track24_socialmedia/11
Miltner, K. M. (2018). Internet memes. The SAGE handbook of social media, 55, 412-428. (PDF Available Here from katemiltner.com)
Milner, R. M., & Phillips, W. (2020). 3. Tilling Bigoted Lands, Sowing Bigoted Seeds. You Are Here. at https://assets.pubpub.org/chijix8i/86beb36a-5fb7-4d58-8112-7bb66228d95b.pdf (accessed 07 Feb 2026).
Phillips, W., & Milner, R. M. (2020). The gathering storm. You Are Here. Available at: https://you-are-here. pubpub. org/pub/2fh6pdi8 (accessed 07 Feb 2026).
Phillips, W., & Milner, R. M. (2017). The ambivalent internet: Mischief, oddity, and antagonism online. Cambridge: Polity.
