Religious desacralization and irony on Twitter: The hypermediatization of the Virgen of Guadalupe phenomenon

Abstract

This article presents a socio discursive, rhetorical and enunciative analysis of the hashtag @PreguntasParaLaVirgencita, which became a “trending topic” on December 12, 2012. The hashtag invited people to pose questions to Mexico’s Virgin of Guadalupe, giving rise to a collective and playful space for questioning directly this important figure on the Internet. This anonymous and critical space targeted one of the most important religious symbols in Mexico, who is difficult to openly interrogate in Mexican society. Irony energized this corner of Twitter, shaping the various parodic and satirical forms of each tweet. The study of this hashtag allows us access to an unprecedented public process for desacralizing this religious figure. The analysis points to how postmodern parody allows us to distance ourselves from past depictions and representations, to question them, make them ironic and historicize them.