Expression and emotional experience of the covid-19 pandemic through memetics in a facebook profile of mexican college students

The aim of this paper is to explore the expression and emotional experience of the COVID-19 pandemic through a Facebook profile of Mexican university students. In this case study, the virtual ethnographic method was used with the intention of carrying out a detailed study and advancing theoretical knowledge of the phenomenon in question. The recovery and analysis of the information was carried out during the months of March to July 2020. A total of 113 memes were captured, of which 55 (48.7%) expressed emotions linked to the pandemic. The results show that the meme is a complex system involving cognitive processes and language games specific to the culture in which they are used, promoting expressiveness and ways of sharing and being affectionate during the pandemic. The expression of negative emotions such as pessimism, despair, fear and loneliness prevails;positive emotions such as astonishment, optimism and serenity are also expressed. The results lead to a partial verification of the research assumption in the understanding that the predominant emotions, although negative, are not the emotions that have been identified as part of the historical-socio-cultural premises of emotional expression in Mexicans. We discuss the edifying function of memes in delineating expressive patterns of valuation and planning of the new reality by constituting referents that operate as cultural units that articulate communicative acts to provide meaning and identity to users.