Humor as Armor: Sarcastic Communication and Group Cohesion in Ukrainian Military Online Discourse
Humor as Armor: Sarcastic Communication and Group Cohesion in Ukrainian Military Online Discourse

Summary/Abstract: This article analyzes the characteristics of sarcastic discourse in the Ukrainian militaryenvironment, focusing on three types of material: visual memes, fairy tale narratives,and online comments. The empirical corpus consists of 627 items collected from theFacebook community “Standarty khotevshykh v NATO” [Standards for those wishing tojoin NATO], which unites over 41,000 participants. The dataset, which encompasses theperiod from January 2024 to October 2025, comprises 76 visual posts, 17 “fairy tales”,and 413 comments, all of which contain explicit or implicit markers of irony or sarcasm.The study adopts a multimodal discursive approach, treating verbal, visual, and paralin-guistic forms as elements of social practice. Thematic analysis facilitates the identificationof recurrent semantic structures and latent meanings. The findings indicate that sarcasticdiscourse among Ukrainian military personnel functions as a multimodal communicativesystem. Visual memes create contrasts between official rhetoric and everyday reality; fairytales articulate institutional critique through allegory while provoking strong affectiveresponses; and comments moderate interaction by transforming aggressive sarcasminto affiliative humor and self-irony. Collectively, these practices operate as an adaptivemechanism that enables Ukrainian soldiers to maintain psychological balance, reinforcegroup identity, and sustain cohesion under conditions of stress and limited autonomy.

• Details
• Contents