Drama, fashion and cigarettes: Internet Casts Pop Blik Op Selection of Pope

The conclave is one of the world’s most solemn, holy and consistent elections. It is also a secret meeting of older men who wear red robes and deal with politics, planning and smoking while choosing the leader of the Roman Catholics in the world.

The internet could not resist.

‘It’s so wild” Rob Anderson, an author and internet personality who focuses on Pop and LGBTQ culture, said about the conclave, That starts on Wednesday. “It’s dramatic and it’s fashion.”

One of the world’s longest -running elections will take place for a global audience that has never been immersed in social media and is fluent in Memes. It comes after the release of the film ‘Conclave’ last year, which shows that the pope’s elections can be viewed while eating popcorn.

Now, after years of growth of dissatisfaction with the church, many young people lean around the world to the Memefility of Vatican Pagtry and intrigues.

“The Vatican-Core Summer has started”, read A recent article In the Italian magazine Rivista Studio.

In a mix of fascination, irreverence, fandom and possible blasphemy, Video compilations of cardinals of Charli XCX Soundtracks have surfaced online. Tiktok -Makers who wear paper skull caps have concluded -discussions imitated. Influencers have published voters guides for the conclave, fan pages for candidates have been published and rankings of the best contenders based on very non-Catholic criteria are flowering. A meme of one Cardinal lit another cigarette collected more than five million views on X.

“All these cardinals are impossible to look chic in Rome,” Victoria Genzini, an Italian curator who performs a meme pagesaid in an interview. Since the Jude Law played in the TV series ‘The Young Pope’ 2016, she said, “There has been a rise of Pop Blik about the Vatican.”

“It’s easy to make memes,” Mrs Genzini added. “The Catholic iconography is camp.”

Some online commentators have expressed indignation about the online content and say that the chat about a Catholic leader is offensive. They criticized ‘humor at the expense of the beliefs of other people’. Another said that the rituals surrounding death and follow -up of a pope should be treated as holy.

However, the digital humorists did not seem to be put off. One meme, inspired by the Headline of a New York Times Opinion -article asks: “Is the remedy for male loneliness a conclave?“

In one tap -video, the Italian TV fashion commentary plays about images of Cardinal Raymond Burke, an American, Wear a meter long red cloak.

In other videos the cardinals are introduced as talent show participants, or ‘divas’, according to Mr. Anderson, the internet personality, which is located in New York and a Series popular videoscalled the ‘pope games’, which describes the conclave.

“The idea that these old men are locked up in a building as a spare or a lock-in in high school that wears their PJs is hilarious” Anderson said.

Travel bloggers from Dublin and graphic designers from New Jersey now weigh on the papal choice and share their recording on Instagram and X.

The new Pontiff, which can be chosen shortly after the beginning of 133 cardinals, will be asked to make difficult decisions about the future of the church and tackle the foolishness of the Vatican and her sexual abuse scandals.

The internet has received ‘all different types of personalities that may be the next pope” Anderson said. “I mean, pope pizza balla,” he said, referring to Cardinal Pierbattista Pizza Balla from Jerusalemconsidered a leader.

“The internet was really rooted for him, simply because they want to be able to say that name a lot,” he said.

Even the White House has worked, publishing A photo generated by AI of President Trump dressed as the pope. Mr. Trump, who said he had had ‘Nothing to do with it“Critics swept away and say they” can’t make a joke. “

Vice -President JD Vance has contributed his own dose of humor by posting that State Secretary Marco Rubio, who recently took on a new interim role as a national security adviser, “could assume a little more. If there was only a vacancy for a devout Catholic …”

A Canadian conservative magazine a video appeared again from Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, a Filipino prelate, who sings a fragment from ‘Imagine’. (The Lennon number begins, “Imagine there is no heaven”, a rule that the Cardinal apparently did not say.) The website lifesitenews accused Cardinal Tagle of a “scandal or outrageous ignorance” For singing what it called the ‘atheist people’ song ‘. But others were galvanized.

“Karaoke Under the Tagle Papacy Gonna Go Crazzzy,” Pope Crave, an account dedicated to fans of the new “conclave” film, wrote on X.

Some online commentators have described clergy such as Cardinal Matteo Zuppi of Italy – described by fans as a “progressive icon” – in political symbols. His liberal positions have encouraged some conservatives to “no against a communist pope.”

Other observers wondered whether the importance in the conclave would translate into a permanent involvement with the church.

Elisa Giudici, author of the Rivista Studio article, said it was correct because the church now meant so little for many young people that they believed that they could approach it lightly without feeling unpleasant or stigmatized (or preparing for a decapitation).

“In the past, the conclave was experienced as something important from the perspective of faith,” said Mrs. Giudici. “Now that fell through and people experience it as a music festival or the Olympic Games.”

Many of the cardinals entitled to vote are active on social media, but during the conclave they will have to drop their phones at the guesthouse where they will stay, said a Vatican spokesperson. Signal transmissions for mobile phones in Vatican City will also be eliminated during the conclave, said the Vatican’s administrative body.

“We are of course also afraid of political influence” Cardinal Anders Arborelius van Zweden said in an interview last week.

An analysis that is made available on Monday to the time of Cyabra, a company for social media in Tel Aviv that claims disinformation of disinformation, discovered that one in five profiles on X about the conclave or speculation about the next pope or the future of the church was bots.

But much of the genuine content seemed to come from sources that are traditionally far from the Catholic world or are even antagonized by the Vatican, such as members of the LGBTQ community.

Last year, after Pope Francis used one Slur against homosexual menRomans put it on banners and turned the insult to a word of pride. Now the strange internet is everywhere in the conclave.

“There is so much material,” Mr Anderson said. “Everyone loves this.”