Hashtags: #RhodesMustFall, #FeesMustFall and the temporalities of a meme event

Abstract

In 2015, South Africa witnessed an eruption of struggles and protests that swept university campuses across the country. These protests were identified with a number of hashtags, among which the most prominent were #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall. These hashtags were in turn used to name the movements, led by university students and outsourced cleaning staff, that won a number of important victories and concessions. The present chapter defines the emergence, proliferation and memetic character of hashtags incorporating the injunction #MustFall as a ‘meme event’. It also explores the temporalities recalled by the conceptual metaphor of falling as an expression of political desire and, in particular, of the struggle for decolonisation.