每日跟讀#704: United We Stan: How the Internet Merged Pop Culture and Politics

Whatever persona Elizabeth Warren hopes to project in her presidential campaign, it is probably not that of a child witch. But that is the persona that some of her biggest fans have chosen for her.

雖不知華倫希望在競選總統時以何種形象出現，但大概不會是巫童，然而這正是她的一些鐵粉為她選擇的人物形象。

Images of Hermione Granger, played in the “Harry Potter” films by a young Emma Watson, materialize at Warren’s every move. Warren steps onto the debate stage, and her fans craft tweets where Hermione stands in as her, rolling her eyes at the boys in wizarding class. Warren reads the whole Mueller report, and Hermione smugly wags her wand. In one extremely cursed tweet with zero likes, Warren’s face is transplanted onto Hermione’s frame, posed alongside Beto O’Rourke as Harry and Pete Buttigieg as Ron Weasley.

《哈利波特》電影中由年輕的艾瑪．華森所飾演的妙麗的人物形象，被落實在華倫的一舉一動中。華倫走上辯論會舞台時，她的粉絲們將妙麗對魔法課上男孩翻白眼的照片製作成一則推文，妙麗成了她的化身。華倫展讀穆勒的整份報告時，妙麗得意地搖著魔仗。在一則被罵到翻、沒人按讚的推文中，華倫的臉被安到妙麗的身體上，並跟歐洛克扮演的哈利，以及布塔朱吉扮演的榮恩一起擺姿勢。

What is this strange chimera of presidential campaigning: a candidate’s head on pop culture’s body? It is the product of a great convergence between politics and culture, citizenship and commerce, ideology and aesthetics. Civic participation has been converted seamlessly into consumer practice. It is democracy reimagined as fandom, and it is now a dominant mode of experiencing politics.

候選人的頭配上流行文化的身體，這是總統選戰中什麼樣的奇怪幻象？它是政治與文化、公民與商業、意識形態與美學的巨大融合的產物。公民參與已經無縫接軌轉化為消費行為。它是個被重新想像成粉絲圈的民主，且現在正是體驗政治的一種主流模式。

You can see it in the efforts to sort the candidates into “Harry Potter” houses, converting the election to a personality quiz in a children’s book, and in the mashup video that distills the 2020 candidates into quotes from Michael Scott, the buffoonish boss of “The Office.”

在試圖把候選人分類成《哈利波特》家族人物，將選舉轉化成童書中的人格測驗、以及把2020年候選人發言變成《我們的辦公室》影集滑稽老闆麥可．史考特名言的混搭影片等行動中，都能看出這一點。

A photograph of three congresswomen of color is published and instantly compared to a Whitney Houston GIF, as if women interrogating Michael Cohen are analogous to Houston confronting her cheating boyfriend. Politicos of all stripes are styled as saints and stamped onto novelty devotional prayer candles.

一張三名有色人種國會女議員的照片被公佈後，立即被跟惠妮·休斯頓的照片相提並論，彷彿審問柯恩的女性就如同質問不忠男友的休斯頓，各種政治人物都被描繪成聖徒，印在新奇的祈禱蠟燭上。

Here, political engagement slips easily into the habits of consumption. President Donald Trump’s fans follow him around the country like groupies, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s boosters fetishize her funnel-neck coat as a symbol of the #resistance.

在這一點上，政治參與很容易不知不覺變成消費習慣。川普總統的粉絲們像追星族一樣跟著他走遍全國，眾議院議長波洛西的支持者們則把她的漏斗領外套當作＃抵抗運動的象徵。

Candidates’ supporters now identify as stans — a term derived from the 2000 Eminem song about a fan who becomes so obsessed, he kills.

候選人的支持者現在以stans自居，而這個詞源自阿姆2000年的歌曲，講述一位變得太痴狂、他所害死的粉絲。

Political stanning has a way of remapping the landscape of mainstream politics — maybe even overwriting physical reality itself. Frantic online cultural production swarms around Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg whenever she experiences a health scare, as if memes alone could sustain the octogenarian’s life.

政治上的瘋狂迷戀往往能重繪主流政治的樣貌，甚至可能掩蓋現實世界本身。每當大法官茹絲．貝德．金斯伯格經歷一場健康恐慌時，瘋狂的網路文化產物便群起圍繞著她，彷彿只有迷因才能維持這位八旬老人的生命。

Trump’s fans imbue him with improbable prowess when they edit him into pro-wrestling videos showing him smacking down CNN. But perhaps the most explicit riff on the trend was the infamous Beto O’Rourke sex tweet, which translated his political positions into sexual ones.

當川普粉絲將他編輯進職業摔角影片，顯示他擊倒CNN時，給他注入了不可思議的力量。而歐洛克臭名昭彰的性推文，則可能是對此一趨勢最明顯的嘲諷，因它將他的政治立場轉變成了性別立場。

Source article: https://paper.udn.com/udnpaper/POH0067/345410/web/