Works
Over the years, I have published in academic journals and edited volumes as well as arts and cultural publications.
As a result, my outputs span from the ‘serious’ to the ‘experimental’, from open source initiatives to paywalled institutions.
I regularly speak to the press about popular memetic phenomena, so you may see my name in Wired, The Washington Post, The Independent, BBC, Input and others.
At the same time, I have appeared on many podcasts and even co-produced one. Some of my workshops and talks have been recorded in video format and can be found in an errant corner of YouTube.
Please feel free to explore (and cite) my works.
Academic publications
PhD Thesis
İdil Galip. 2023. Creative digital labour of meme-making. PhD Thesis: University of Edinburgh.
Books
(Forthcoming, 2025) İdil Galip. Beyond Virality: The Art of Internet Memes. Bristol: Intellect Books. Print.
(2024) Chloe Arkenbout and İdil Galip. Critical Meme Reader III: Breaking the Meme. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures. Print and Online.
Peer-reviewed articles
İdil Galip. 2024. “Methodological and epistemological challenges in meme research and meme studies”. Internet Histories. 8(4): 312–330. https://doi.org/10.1080/24701475.2024.2359846
Karakayalı, Nedim, Burç Köstem, and İdil Galip. 2018. “Recommendation Systems as Technologies of the Self: Algorithmic Control and the Formation of Music Taste.” Theory, Culture & Society, 35(2): 3–24. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276417722391
Bancroft, Angus, Tessa Parkes, İdil Galip, Josh Dumbrell, Tania Browne, Joe Schofield. 2022. "Negotiating an illicit economy in the time of COVID-19: dealing and buying dilemmas in the lives of Scottish drug users." Contemporary Drug Problems, 49(4): 369-384. https://doi.org/10.1177/009145092211227
Book chapters
(Forthcoming, 2025) İdil Galip and Eleni Maragkou “Red Scare Girlfriends: Language games in the Red Scare podcast, or the ludic logic of online contrarianism.” In Play & Politics: Media Platforms, Making Worlds edited by Sybille Lammes, Sara Polak, Frans Willem Korsten, Bram Ieven, Frank Chouraqui, Saniye Ince and Alex Gekker. Routledge.
(Forthcoming, 2025) İdil Galip “The meme as a concept.” In Practicing Digital Ethnography, edited by Devin Proctor. Routledge.
İdil Galip. 2021. "‘The Grotesque’ in Instagram Memes." In Critical Meme Research: Global Mutations of the Viral Image, edited by Chloe Arkenbout, Daniel de Zeeuw and Jack Wilson, 27-40. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures. Available online.
Commissioned Reports
Matheson, Catriona, Tessa Parkes, Joe Schofield, Josh Dumbrell, Tania Browne, Angus Bancroft, and İdil Galip. 2020. Understanding the health impacts of the COVID-19 response on people who use drugs in Scotland (PWUD): Implications for COVID-19 infection and transmission among this group and impacts on harm reduction, treatment and recovery. Scotland: Chief Scientist Office. https://www.cso.scot.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/COVSTG2010-1.pdf
Peer-reviewed book reviews
Galip, İdil. 2022. “Digital Life”. Information, Communication & Society, 25(2): 313-315. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2021.1902550
Galip, İdil. 2019. “Digital Sociologies”. New Media & Society, 21(9): 2089–2091. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444819841377
Cultural and arts publications
Commissioned Essays
Galip, İdil. (Forthcoming in) 2025. “The lure of memetic auto-theory.” Catalogue essay for The Lure of the Image exhibition. Fotomuseum Winterthur. Print and Online. https://www.permanentbeta.network/episode/207
Galip, İdil. 2023. “Remaking Globalisation in Memes.” In Remaking Globalisation. Bundeskanzler Helmut Schmidt Stiftung. Print and Online. https://www.helmut-schmidt.de/fileadmin/Aktuelles/Aktuelles_Veranstaltungen/Helmut_Schmidt_Lecture/2023_BKHS_Magazine_Remaking_Globalisation.pdf
Galip, İdil. 2023. “As Above, So Below.” In POSTPOSTPOST: Reflections on a New Avantgarde. https://postpostpost.com/Products
“Memes?” In Faking the Real. Kunsthaus Graz. https://www.museum-joanneum.at/en/kunsthaus-graz/discover/publications-editions/kunsthaus-publications/catalog/publication-for-faking-the-real
Galip, İdil. 2022. “Propaganda, Digital Diplomacy, Meme Wars: How Digital Confrontation Is Shaping the New World Order.” In Multipolarity after Ukraine: Old Wine in New Bottles. Institute for International Political Studies. https://www.ispionline.it/en/publication/multipolarity-after-ukraine-old-wine-in-new-bottles-116515
Galip, İdil. 2022. Lead article for Iconografie Anno II, Volume II: “Dank: Sull’uso politico dei meme”. Print and Online. http://www.iconografie.it/editoriale-a2n2/
Galip, İdil. 2021. “Memes, Irony and Ugliness.” Institute of Network Cultures. Online. https://networkcultures.org/viralimageculture/2021/12/17/memes-irony-and-ugliness/
Galip, İdil. 2021. “Ironie und Hässlichkeit in Memes.” KUNSTFORUM, 279: 112-117. Print. https://www.kunstforum.de/artikel/ironie-und-haesslichkeit-in-memes/
Galip, İdil. 2021. “A Respite From Algorithmic Violence: Memes, Platforms, and Content Moderation.” Dreaming Beyond AI. Online. https://dreamingbeyond.ai/en/f/pluriverse/ai-violence-trauma/a-respite-from-algorithmic-violence-memes-platforms-and-content-moderation
Galip, İdil. 2021. “Wojak and the Digital Factory.” CONTENT: A memetics research journal, 1: 68-79. The Bard Memetics Laboratory. Online. https://www.memelab.org/content/content-vol-1
Exhibition Texts
Galip, İdil. 2021. “The Party @freeze_magazine”. WESERHALLE Berlin.
Zines
Cem A. in collaboration with the Meme Studies Research Network. 2021. “The Meme Kit Zine”.
Selected media appearances
TV
Deutsche Welle (DW). 2021. Shift: Living in the Digital Age — Memes.
Interviews
The Digital Fairy (Digiverse). 2023. Inside the world of meme studies with Idil Galip.
BBC. 2022. The surprising power of internet memes.
RND. 2021. Meme-Forscherin im Interview: „Memes sind eine Art Insiderwitz im Internet“
Institute of Network Cultures. 2021. How and Why to Start a Meme Studies Research Network: A conversation with Idil Galip .
virtualgoodsdealer. 2021 Discord Servers for Research and Creative Inspiration.
Podcasts
Talk Media to Me. 2024. S03E09: Memes in the Art World with Idil Galip.
Cursed with Good Ideas. 2024. Breaking all the Memes with Idil Galip.
Net Nonsense. 2023. Internet culture podcast hosted by Idil Galip and Erinne Paisley.
LOL My Praxis. 2023. FLASH (aaah) meme with Idil Galip.
The Sociology Show. 2021. The Sociology of Internet Memes with Idil Galip.
Digital Void Podcast. 2021. Ep. 41: Idil Galip “Meme Studies Research Network”.
Selected talks and lectures
2024
Speaker: “Beyond Virality: Niche and viral content in algorithmically ordered platforms”
Conference: Virality: Past, Present, Future
Institution: University of Luxembourg
Date: November 19, 2024
2023
Speaker: “The visual reordering of memes through algorithmic culture: Speculating about the future of content”
Symposium: How to Dank Images - Methoden der Bildanalyse im Kontext des visuellen Kontrollverlusts
Institution: University of Cologne, Germany
Date: October 27, 2023
Speaker: “Memes are new”
Symposium: Groundhog Day 2023
Institution: Influencer Ethnography Research Lab, Curtin University, Australia
Date: September 11, 2023
Keynote Speaker: “Locating Meme Subcultures on Digital Platforms: An Ethnography on Instagram”
Conference: Contested Knowledge: Anthropological Perspectives
Institution: Ludwig Maximilians Universitat Munchen & the German Anthropological Association, Germany
Date: July 28, 2023
Speaker and Demonstrator: “Screen Walk with Idil Galip”
Event series: Screen Walks
Institution: The Photographers’ Gallery, United Kingdom.
Date: March 29, 2023
2022
Speaker: “Creating and communicating irony through internet memes”
Special Talk sponsored by “Grafill”, the Norwegian organization for visual communication
Institution: Oslo National Academy of the Arts, Norway
Date: October 25, 2022
Speaker: “Internet memes in digital culture”
Event Series: Media Culture A-Z
Institution: House of Electronic Arts, Basel, Switzerland
Date: June 22, 2022
Speaker: “Creating and communicating irony through internet memes”
Interdisciplinary Conference: Destroy Media! Humour as a strategy of contemporary image practices
Institution: University of the Arts Bremen, Germany
Date: May 31, 2022
SELECTED CONFERENCE and EVENT ACTIVITIES
2025
Programme Committee Member: “Born Digital Collections, Archives and Memory”, University of London School of Advanced Study
2024
Co-Organiser and speaker: “Critical Meme Reader III: Breaking the Meme”
Event: Critical Meme Reader III Launch Event, SPUI25, Amsterdam.
Co-Organiser and speaker: “TikTok: Work, Time, and Play in the Platform Economy”
Event: Conference organised by Content Providers, University of Edinburgh.
Presenter: “Theorising meme-making as digital labour”
Conference: Global Digital Intimacies, University of Amsterdam
2023
Co-Organiser: “Planetary Memecry: New approaches to sociality, affect, and meaning in online subcultures”, ASCA and NICA funded Masterclass, University of Amsterdam.
2021
Co-Presenter: “Doing Research Online”
Event: National Centre for Research Methods Research Methods Festival
Presenter: “Art Worlds Online: Memes, Labour and Politics”
Event: British Sociological Association (BSA) Annual Conference - Science, Technology and Digital Studies Stream
2020
Presenter: “Art Worlds Online: Methods, Challenges, Ethics and Digital Ethnography”
Event: Data-in-Progress Seminars at the Centre for Data, Culture & Society at the University of Edinburgh
Presenter: “Digital patronage and countercultural entrepreneurs: Instagram’s niche-meme community”
Event: Graduate Colloquium, “Unboxing AI: Understanding Artificial Intelligence” Conference (International Network for Digital Labour)
2019
Co-Chair: “Digital Research Ethics Panel”
Event: New Directions Graduate Conference, University of Edinburgh
Presenter: “The Memeing of Feminism: Humour on Instagram”
Event: New Directions Graduate Conference, University of Edinburgh