‘If God asks’: hidden emotions and folk beliefs in the ‘mythical meme’ of the pandemic

The creativity we find in COVID-19 memes is not restricted to everyday themes and characters, but is also reflected in the rich cycles of ‘mythical memes’—that is, memes that describe the world of the gods and their hierarchical relationships with humans through popular images and artworks. The artistic representation of myth in the usually humorous framework of the meme may raise questions as to how and why the archaic and the contemporary, the religious and the secular, or the ritual and the digital meet in this context. A comparative reading of such narratives in their social as well as literary contexts (including samples from European and Israeli WhatsApp groups and websites) may teach us not only about the origins and characteristics of folk beliefs during the pandemic, but also about the function of memes as ‘expressive repertoires’—artistic accounts that reflect and stimulate collective emotions. This article demonstrates and explains how the distant and symbolic plot of the myth, a plot of struggles with primordial forces, allowed its audiences to express threatening feelings. Meanwhile, the humorous framework of the meme regulated these emotions, legitimized them, and placed them in perspective. The artistic language and the semiotic channels through which this hybrid genre gave expression to popular religious conceptions expose the diverse roots of folk or lived religion as a belief system that crosses not only a variety of common worldviews but also canons and tastes, attesting to its universal as well as local roles.