QUEER CATHARSIS
Twitter users often resort to political satire and absurd humour as a form of catharsis or a way to cope with global turmoil. Although Tran and Rauchberg specifically investigate “hopecore memes” as “sensemaking practices that attempt amelioration of the unknown,” I expand their claims to include absurd and farcical political memes outside of the hopecore genre. Specifically, I draw on Twitter memes about the death of the Ayatollah on February 28, 2026, to explore how users engage in this sensemaking practice as a form of LGBTQ+ resistance. One Twitter user, in response to the news about the Ayatollah’s death, posted “Please, everyone, the gender neutral term is Ayatollx” (@RennaW). Her tweet pokes fun at the Ayatollah’s death while also satirizing the notoriously intolerant ideologies of the Iranian regime by suggesting that the Ayatollah liked to be referred to through gender neutral terms. Another user retweeted an old homophobic tweet from the Ayatollah to indicate that “homosexuality” has outlived him (@homonoqueer). Such satirical posts are not just humour for humour’s sake. They are markers of LGBTQ+ resistance and a form of cathartic representation for communities of affect, celebrating the death of and demeaning a man who has the blood of thousands of queer people on his hands.