“Parallel Tyumen”: Visual manifestations of the local text

Abstract

The article examines Tyumen Internet memes that correlated with offine urban beliefs. The study is based mainly on the material of the network group “Parallel Tyumen” and other additional data of Tyumen groups in the social network “VKontakte”. The author identifes three groups of the most common plots of visual Tyumen texts, as well as specifc mechanisms of their creation: metaphorical transfer (based on the objects' signifcance or on their accidental similarity), exaggeration, destruction and animation. We show how through the creation and distribution of local memes not only the cultural identity of members of the Tyumen community (authors and readers of visual texts) is constructed, but also the history of places and events they deem signifcant. In addition, through the visualization of a complex of urban stereotypes in the form of ironic popular local memes, there takes place, on the one hand, their incorporation into cultural memory, and, on the other, a reduction of social tensions that they had caused.