WASHINGTON (AP) — Whether it’s a grin Joe Biden as “Dark Brandon” or Donald Trump‘s face superimposed on a scene from HBO’s “Game of Thrones,” both presidential campaigns this year have embraced digital memes, the lingua franca of social media.
The Democratic presidential and Republican former president’s campaigns are enthusiastically creating and sharing content that attempts to shape the narratives around both men. Biden’s campaign even recently posted a job search for a meme page manager.
With tens of millions of people using social media as their primary source of information, the battle for memes could impact who wins in November. Many Americans say they are not excited about a Biden-Trump rematch, and that growing digital habits make it harder to reach people through traditional venues for political advertising, such as print publications or television.
Memes can be a sharper, faster way to get a political point across than a block of text or a long video. But online failures have damaged candidates and sparked major controversy.
Here’s a look at how memes are shaping presidential politics.
First, what is a meme?
Memes have been around longer than you think.
The term “meme” was coined in 1976 by British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, who used it to refer to a piece of information that is imitated and shared, whether it is a slogan, a behavior or an idea.
With the rise of internet culture, digital memes have skyrocketed in popularity. They often take the form of visual content, such as an image or a video with some message that appeals to people who understand it because of the knowledge they have or because of their membership in a particular group. Memes don’t have to be funny or satirical, but that makes them more likely to be shared widely. And while politicians today purposefully create and share memes, some of the most famous ones emerged unintentionally.
One of the earliest memes of the modern era was former Vermont Governor Howard Dean’s enthusiastic shout on the night of the Iowa caucuses, with videos and images of the Democrat’s guttural shout being widely shared, making him look ridiculous and his already struggling presidential bid was damaged.
When President Barack Obama moved into the White House in 2009, photos of outgoing President George W. Bush appeared with the caption: ‘Miss me yet?’ were widely shared by Bush’s supporters.
A 2011 photo of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wearing sunglasses and staring at her phone became a popular meme the following year, “Texts from Hillary,” claiming she sent snarky texts to politicians and celebrities sent.
“If you do it right, you take advantage of something the group agrees on or is suspicious of; you’re tapping into something that connects with the audience,” says Rebecca Ortiz, an associate professor of advertising at Syracuse University who has researched the influence of memes around political identity.
How do the two candidates approach memes?
Biden’s campaign has built up its own stockpile of photos and videos for distribution on official Biden-related accounts. According to a Biden campaign official, advisers are also looking to work with third-party creators in the coming months, hoping to reach the followers of users who already appear aligned with a pro-Biden message.
By developing relationships with third-party creators, campaign officials hope some undecided or unconvinced voters will like Biden’s message if they receive it from another account they already follow.
“We are doing our very best to run a digital program that is authentic to our candidate, who probably isn’t spending all his time on Twitter – he certainly isn’t,” said Clarke Humphrey, senior advisor for digital persuasion at the Biden. campaign. “So I think we’ve just been really creative in taking advantage of all the corners of the internet so he can be where he needs to be without actually having to go to those places.”
Trump, a prolific user of social media even before he ran for president, has long embraced and shared memes, as have his highly online political aides and some of his adult children. His eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., regularly shares them, calling himself a “Meme Wars General” on Instagram.
The campaign offered no details about the digital team or its use of memes. Spokesman Steven Cheung issued a statement describing Biden’s videotaped speeches and moments of apparent confusion.
“Joe Biden is a walking, talking meme every time he shuffles into public view,” Cheung said.
What are some examples of their content?
Biden’s team has embraced “Dark Brandon,” appropriating a right-wing conspiracy meme that depicted the president as a threatening force and used a nickname “Brandon” that became a joke among conservatives for insulting him.
While ‘Dark Brandon’ originally depicted Biden as a shadowy threat, Democrats took over by using the image as a meme to mock conspiracy theories about Biden’s alleged influence on events like the Super Bowl and portray him as a powerful power to praise his achievements.
Now the campaign is selling signs, mugs, baby onesies and even coffee bags depicting Biden as “Dark Brandon” with red laser eyes.
Trump and his staff regularly share memes that glorify him in exaggerated ways, such as an image of him leading a group of dancing Bollywood soldiers.
In April, just before the total solar eclipse swept across North America, Trump shared a meme video on his Truth Social media account with clips of people gazing into the sky wearing eclipse glasses and cheering as the sky darkened before heading to a image went. of the sun with a large silhouette of Trump’s head blocking it as people cheer.
And both the Biden and Trump campaigns quickly cut potentially embarrassing videos of their opponent and post them online within minutes, injecting those moments into the social media bloodstream and often boosting traditional reporting.
When did memes go wrong?
Trump and his campaign often share content created by third-party meme makers — often aimed at his base — and sometimes reject content that later sparks outrage.
In 2016, he shared a meme about Clinton that appeared to depict the Star of David on top of a pile of money, evoking an anti-Semitic trope. Trump removed the image, but called it “a basic star, often used by sheriffs.”
Last month, Trump was criticized for sharing a video meme on Truth Social that included references to a “United Empire” in hypothetical news headlines if he won the November election.
The “United Reich” meme was created by an outside group of meme makers that The New York Times reported worked with the Trump campaign. The Dilley Meme Team describes themselves as “America’s Biggest MAGA Members” and “Trump’s Online War Machine,” with their creations sometimes shared by Trump himself.
The campaign said the video was shared by an employee who saw it online and did not see the reference. Trump’s campaign denied it is coordinating with the group but said it appreciates the efforts of third-party creators.
Brenden Dilley, who leads the Dilley Meme Team, did not respond to emailed questions about the group’s work but posted a reply to X saying he would grant an interview in January 2025, after the next presidential inauguration .
Whose memes go the furthest?
It’s hard to say. Both candidates have tens of millions of followers on social media networks, as do their campaign accounts, but it’s difficult to keep track of how often a particular meme is shared, or remixed and reshared.
Trump has more social media followers than Biden on Instagram, TikTok, Truth Social (Trump’s social media network) and January 1 was locked. 6 rebellion.
Trump’s only post since then was his mugshot. It has also become a meme.
