What comes as a novelty on the political scene is a non-partisan, pacifist resistance armed with sharp-tongued satire — now the hallmark of the protest wave. It certainly comes as a baffling novelty for Erdogan, too, at a time when he has indulged in the comforts of a muzzled media and daily displays of fawning reverence.

The scenes of violent police clampdowns on protesters in barricaded streets engulfed in clouds of tear gas are not unfamiliar to Turkey, which was plagued by deadly political unrest in the 1970s, and then the Kurdish conflict.

The defiant chants at the protests, the outpour of lampoons on Twitter and the taunting graffiti in the streets have come as a stunning explosion in a country where many critical journalists have ended up in retirement or in jail, and public servants have come to think twice before posting Erdogan cartoons on Facebook.

The protesters, led by urban middle-class youths rebelling against Erdogan’s increasingly authoritarian ways, have yet to extract any concessions from the premier, who has dismissed them with anger and disdain. Yet they have irreversibly cracked the wall of fear the government had built and reclaimed free speech — at least in the street and on social media.

The unprecedented wave of protests sweeping Turkey has come along with an overdose of youthful creativity and humor, undoing overnight Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s domineering image that looked invincible only two weeks ago.

In their own words, the protesters are using “disproportionate wit” against the government. In a matter of days, the movement has created a pop culture of its own, with the wittiest jokes going viral on social media and transforming instantly into banners, chants and songs in the streets.

It is Erdogan himself who provides much of the ammunition for the rampage of humor. When the protests first broke out, Erdogan played down the protesters as “çapulcu,” which means plunderer or hoodlum in Turkish. The demonstrators proudly embraced the word, Anglicized it and created a new one: “Chapulling,” which signifies dissent and resistance. It has now become the motto of the protests, inspired an anthem called “Everyday I’m Chapulling” and made its way to Wikipedia. Çapul TV has gone on air from Istanbul’s Gezi Park, the epicenter of the protests, occupied by a colorful tent encampment. Even Noam Chomsky has declared himself a “çapulcu” in a video message of support.

The protest jargon contains little political ideology and comes directly as a response to Erdogan’s often arrogant rhetoric, overt contempt of liberal lifestyles and his controversial policies, namely an aggressive urban construction drive, restrictions on alcohol, attempts to ban abortion and insistent calls on women to have three children.

“Cheers, Tayyip, cheers,” protesters chant at each demonstration, and the hands raised in the air often hold beer cans. “You banned booze and we sobered up,” one popular banner says. “All drunkards united,” another declares.

Despite the three dead and hundreds of injured in nationwide street clashes since May 31, the demonstrators remain playfully defiant. “This pepper gas is wonderful, buddy,” says a slogan spray-painted on roads and walls. “Pepper gas, hooray!” protesters chant when they confront the police. “Any melon gas? It goes well with raki,” a banner says, referring to the anise-flavored Turkish liquor. “Haven’t bathed for three days. Send some water cannon,” pleads another.

Couples pose kissing in the streets in a show of defiance to recent moves to ban “immorality” in public places. “Make love not war with me, Tayyip,” taunts a slogan painted on the asphalt, while a banner asks: “You sure you want three kids like me?” Some messages are sarcastically naïve: “Are you angry, dear?” or “Tayyip, you’re fun.” Plenty of obscene language has also made its way to walls and shop windows, an unprecedented phenomenon in Turkey’s political tradition.

Much anger has also been directed at Turkey’s mainstream media, which, long intimidated by the government, refrained from reporting the clashes that broke out May 31 and instead aired cooking programs and documentaries. While CNN International broadcast the clashes live, its sister channel CNN Turk aired a documentary about penguins. The penguin has since become another icon of the protests.

Thousands, meanwhile, have emptied their accounts at Garanti Bank, which belongs to the business group that owns NTV, another major news channel. The NTV boss was forced to apologize and the Garanti manager declared he was also a “çapulcu.”

The protests appear to have injected some courage in newsrooms as the coverage eventually increased and criticism of the government became louder on the screens.

Yet six newspapers appeared with identical headlines on June 7, trumpeting Erdogan’s stated commitment to democracy, raising fresh questions on just how far government control of the media extends.

The protesters are not only voicing grievances, they are spreading a message of their own. The park encampment at the iconic Taksim Square has evolved into an unprecedented form of pacifist resistance. The youngsters dance and sing. They read books. They do yoga. They clean up the rubbish in the streets and run a free canteen, sponsored by donors.

The encampment, launched originally by environmentalists opposed to a development project, has become a festive microcosm of tolerance and pluralism, keen to debunk Erdogan’s hallmark “us versus them” tactics and his attempts to portray the protesters as secularists hostile to Islam.

The park has evolved into a festive meeting point where strangers — from apolitical teenagers and Kemalists to homosexuals and archrival football fans — discover one another. Women wearing the Islamic headscarf have also shown up despite reports that some protesters harass veiled women.

Standing out among the activists are the so-called “anti-capitalist Muslims.” Last week, they recited Quranic verses to mark a holy evening as the others did away with beer to show respect. The group then held a collective Friday prayer at the park. “There are two types of people: the tyrants and the oppressed. Against the Muslim tyrant, I stand by the non-Muslim victim,” their leader, theologian Ihsan Eliacik, tweeted.

Many, however, doubt how efficient pacifist resistance will be in getting the message to a prime minister whose polarizing rhetoric and fury remain unfazed.

Erdogan has sought to bully the protesters, saying he was “hardly restraining 50% [of the nation] at home” — a reference to the vote he got in 2011. At a recent rally, his supporters shouted, “Let us go and we’ll crush Taksim,” and Erdogan did nothing to stop the chants.

“Everybody must have now realized what we are struggling against. Humor is useless. Close the ranks,” one protester tweeted.

Sibel Utku Bila is a freelance journalist based in Ankara who has covered Turkey for 15 years. She was a correspondent for Agence France-Presse (AFP) from 1999 to 2011, and articles she wrote during that period have been published in many newspapers around the world. She has worked also as an editor at the Hurriyet Daily News, Turkey’s oldest English-language newspaper.