Poe’s law states that irony and sincerity are indistinguishable in digital media, unless marked with a smiley or symbol indicating the intent of the sender. Far right movements, first in the US and later in Europe, have taken advantage of the difficulty to identify satirical intent from political communication, using satirical markers for disseminating extremist political views “under the radar”. The ironic framing allows internet audiences to avoid accountability for the messages communicated, and for political actors to target political opponent. The ambiguous, post-irony framing also allows satirists to venture into non-satirical politics – with the Ukrainian party Sluga Narodu, and the german Die Partei as notable examples of satire-becoming-politics.

The discussions around both satirical political parties and right-wing aggressive memes have often taken their departure in worries that the “satirical turn” of politics as a symptom of a political system that fails to connect with large groups of the electorate, but also that the satirical modality in itself aggravates the situation, as it allows extremists to push the boundaries for open hostility and extreme views in their communication. Taking a practitioner’s perspective, my presentation will look into social media (primarily Instagram) and how satirical pictures and drawings openly or covertly signal their satirical intent, and to what extent the sender’s identity and agenda are visible.