He has donated the funds from the merchandise branded with this very meme to Vermont charities, and is pushing to raise the federal minimum wage. Bernie’s status as a politician, figurehead, and icon is key for millions of people, he is a champion of human rights in a country that all too often denies people dignity, financial recourse, and the much-vaunted “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Bernie wants to finance direct payments to alleviate the crisis stemming from Covid-19 - and wants to do it now. Of course, if any other political figure had made this pose, the resulting image would not have become a meme. The posture, the jacket, the mask slightly askew - we’re visual creatures, and it’s impossible to not feel how he feels while sitting there in the cold at a distance from everyone else in Washington, D.C. “I am once again asking for your financial support” can be co-opted by college students bemoaning the existence of Zoom breakout rooms (they’re awful), people asking for love, or literally anyone thinking about the dumpster fire that was 2020.īut Bernie in the chair at the inauguration blew any past memes out of the water, spawning endless tweets that have slowed to a trickle, but, crucially, have not stopped. In the two formats already mentioned, his posture is iconic and easily manipulable, as is the text accompanying the first one. Today, the subject at hand is not universal health care, but rather Bernie and his uncanny ability to become a meme in addition to unpacking why this phenomenon exists in the first place. That photo did not get meme-ified, but it did provoke laughs, commentary, and burning ardor for the Vermont senator. Soon another photo of him with a manila folder suggesting a lengthy to-do list appeared, sealing the deal. This jacket seems to appear in another Bernie meme, the one in which he is “once again asking.” There were some tweets contrasting Bernie Sanders and Janet Yellen, who had also dressed for the weather, but - of course - it was Bernie who stole the show. The memes had not yet been made: All I saw was Bernie Sanders sitting in a hunched-over, pensive position (he really might be “The Thinker” of our century), right leg crossed over the left, brown knitted mittens matching his shoes (worn at the soles, of course) and contrasting enough to chromatically fit with his jacket.
This discovery happened very early in the meme saga - what one might call the before times. On that day, Redditor DatGameGuy posted a meme based on the format to the /r/MemeEconomy subreddit, where it received over 71,800 upvotes in sixteen hours (shown below, top left).I found the Bernie meme (™) very innocuously: Instead of writing my senior thesis, I was scrolling through Twitter. Starting on January 23rd, the meme saw a massive surge in popularity on Reddit. A January 22nd, 2020, repost of that meme in the /r/memes subreddit received over 13,600 upvotes in two days. A January 19th, 2020, meme posted to 9GAG received over 8,900 points in five days (shown below, right). A January 16th, 2020, post by Redditor Dumble-Dory received over 560 upvotes in /r/memes in the same period (shown below, center). For example, a January 16th, meme by Muster Point Memes Facebook group received over 1,800 reactions and 2,300 shares in eight days (shown below, left). Starting on January 16th, memes based on the template started spreading on Facebook and Reddit. On January 16th, 2020, comedian shitheadsteve posted another version of the meme which received over 101,000 likes on Instagram and over 3,900 reactions and 4,100 shares on Facebook (shown below, right). On the same day, popular Instagram account drgrayfang posted a similar meme which received over 54,200 likes on the platform in nine days (shown below, left). On the same day, the video was reposted by Being Libertarian Facebook group, receiving over 3,800 reactions and 780 shares in nine days. On January 15th, Redditor 3RunRickyRun4 posted the first known meme based using Sanders' quote to /r/libertarianmeme subreddit, gaining over 570 upvotes in nine days (shown below). I am once again asking for your financial support. The video received over 104,900 views on Twitter, over 124,800 views on Instagram and over 22,000 views on Facebook in four weeks (shown below). On December 30th, United States Senator and a candidate for the 2020 Democratic Party presidential nomination Bernie Sanders posted a fundraising video to his social media accounts.
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