COPYING THE ENEMY

HOW CULTURAL JANONISM REPLICATED THE EXTREME-RIGHT’S STRATEGIES TO ELECT LULA

Abstract

This article analyzes the digital activities of federal deputy André Janones in the 2022 presidential elections, focusing on the informal and coordinated campaign in support of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The initial hypothesis is that Janones appropriated the discursive strategies of the extreme-right, especially Bolsonarism, to build an effective, emotionally mobilizing digital communication ecosystem centered on Telegram. The research combines computational methods (sentiment analysis and topic modeling) with a qualitative analysis anchored in the five metalinguistic functions of digital populism outlined by Letícia Cesarino (2020): friend-enemy boundary, leader-people equivalence, permanent mobilization by threat and crisis, enemy mirroring, and exclusive media channel. The results demonstrate that Janones operated as a "digital vanguard," promoting polarizing narratives, strategic instructions for his followers, and content with strong emotional appeal. Telegram emerged as the campaign's command center, from which guidelines for coordinated action on other platforms were issued. Janones's communication combined affective appeals, memetic language, and astroturfing strategies to compete for digital hegemony. The study concludes that "cultural Janonesism" was marked by the appropriation of extreme-right tactics as a form of confrontation in the digital arena.