Reykjavík Grapevine - 02.06.2017, Síða 16

Meme Magic
The Icelandic Alt-Reality

Words: Nanna Árnadóttir
DIGITAL LIFE You may have seen
these memes on your social
media feeds. They populate
newsfeeds now and then when
people from other countries are
disgruntled about their govern-
ments, about austerity, about
misogyny.

Memes that say, look how great
Iceland is! When the economic
meltdown happened Icelanders
jailed their bankers and forgave
all the debts! The women went on
strike one time in the 1970s and
fixed income inequality!
The widespread reach of these
memes is understandable, it’s as-
pirational.

But.

Beautiful though these sentiments
may be, I urge you all to stop and
critically question the Icelandic
Meme Alt Reality.
The most mislead-
ing is the meme of
former President of
Iceland Ólafur Ragnar
Grímsson, where he
supposedly explaining
how Iceland recovered
so quickly from the re-
cession. By bailing out
the people and jailing
the bankers.
Firstly, in too many
cases people’s wages
have not grown with
the cost of living and the centre
of Reykjavík is now strictly for
tourists as apartment renters have
been priced out of their homes by
Airbnb. So the impression that
we’ve bounced back isn’t honest.
Is it better? Yeah, but have we
bounced back? No.
This meme also gives the im-
pression that we jailed all the
corrupt bankers after the crash
when in truth we jailed a few and
for very short terms in very nice
minimum security prisons. Many
banking and corruption cases are
still under investigation because it
simply takes so long to bring them
to court.
Take the women’s rights meme,
as another example.
Iceland may be a leader
in gender equality but
Icelandic women still
make between 14-18%
less than their male
counter par ts wh ich
is not the major leap
in equality the meme
promises.
S u r e ,
w e ’ r e
w o r k -
i n g on
it but the meme
paints Iceland as a
place that already
has it all figured
out—and we really
don’t.
The most de-
st r uc t ive t h i ng
a b o u t t h e s e
memes, though, is
that it lets us Ice-
landers buy into
o u r ow n hy p e .
We’ve spent a lot of
marketing money to show Iceland
as a socially progressive, nature-
loving haven for the weary city-
dweller looking for a nice vacation.
When people admire Iceland
as a beacon of equality for women
and as a place of justice for cor-
rupt bankers it makes us feel nice,
smug even, like we achieved some-
thing.
This feeling is a lie. It ’s the
same feeling I get after I’ve been
to the gym one time. The next day
when I feel a taut pain in my stom-
ach I think, I’ve basically got abs
already.
Spoiler alert: I don’t. And nei-
ther has Iceland truly earned any
of the spectacular merits bestowed
on it by these memes. So don’t be
a mouthpiece for propaganda,
say no to Icelandic Memes!
16 The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 09 — 2017
“The meme
paints
Iceland as a
place that
already has
it all figured
out ... and we
really don’t”
4.8
4.9