With Chuck Norris, the Meme Was the Message
Twenty years before Donald Trump was posting AI images of himself as a king, the internet learned how to meme by exaggerating the masculine superiority of Chuck Norris. What began innocently with “Chuck Norris Facts” has evolved into MAGA’s empire of slop.
Long before memes became instruments of political warfare, Chuck Norris was the strongest man in the world because everyone agreed to pretend he was. That was the joke. Now it is more or less how politics works. (CBS Photo Archive / Getty Images)
When Chuck Norris died Thursday in Hawaii at the age of eighty-six, the internet, the medium that ultimately defined him more than any film or television role, duly noted his passing with a mix of irony and sincerity.
“Chuck Norris will NOT be resting in peace,” wrote the digital artist Beeple, accompanied by an AI image of Norris in hand-to-hand combat with angels in heaven. “Chuck Norris passed away just so he could punch Satan in the face,” another user replied.
It was a fitting tribute. Norris left the earthly plane with a profoundly bizarre legacy that passed through several distinctly American incarnations: karate champion, B movie action star, Walker, Texas Ranger icon, and then, improbably, patron saint of the early meme web. Squint hard enough and you can spot in “Chuck Norris Facts” the DNA of the “based” right-wing political propaganda of today — the America-as-’80s-action-hero White House videos, the dehumanizing sh-tposting, and creepy AI-generated sludge.
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