Memeing the moniker: The stickiness of gang myths in Swedish news legacy media and TikTok

With the rise of explosive violence in urban Sweden, gang-related crime has become a dominant themein Swedish media and political discourse. As individual members of prominent criminal networks gainincreasing media attention, the construction of the gang myth—how gangs and their members arerepresented, circulated, and reimagined—becomes a crucial area of inquiry. This article investigates theways in which crime content moves through the hybrid news cycle, shaping public perceptions of gangsand their leaders. Using topic modeling of news articles (n=521) and multimodal critical discourseanalysis of TikTok posts (n= 73) referencing one of their most well-known gang leader, the KurdishFox, we examine how myth-building operates across different media contexts. Our findings reveal astark contrast in narrative strategies: while news media frame gangs through urgency, fear, and politicalcrisis, TikTok users engage in playful, dissident humor—employing memes, emojis, and remix cultureto subvert dominant crime discourses.