[Reiwa]

Our life is not a movie or maybe

Real and digital worlds merge

Characters and symbols from popular culture are often adopted by protesters to convey a shared cause or value system.

Pepe the Frog, the right-wing online meme, was adopted by pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong in 2019, while a three-fingered salute from the Hunger Games movie series is used by young pro-democracy protesters in Thailand and opponents of the 2021 military coup in Myanmar as a symbol of resistance.

The One Piece Jolly Roger Flag is a useful symbol because it can be easily adapted from protest to protest and infused with new meanings more specific to the time and place, said Natalie Pang, professor in the department of communications and new media at the National University of Singapore.

In Nepal, protesters displayed slogans such as “Gen Z won’t be silent,” “Your luxury our misery!” and “Nepo Babies” alongside the flag in reference to anger over politicians’ children displaying their lavish lifestyles on social media.

“As a visual symbol, it is gaining a lot of traction because it is in a way, quite effective for people to rally around it to say, ‘I stand for these symbols, these values as well,’” Pang said.

“It is not just rallying people around the values, but also potentially mobilizing them to join in those protests.”

Through social media, there is a blending of the real world and the digital world, she added.

“We are seeing a kind of remixing, a kind of diffusing of both political cultures of expression together with popular culture of consumption.”