By Kay Vollmar, Intern
Whether, like me, political memes make you think of Bernie Sanders “once again asking you” for a miscellaneous item or, like my father, the bromance-y President Obama and Biden memes from 2016, “memes” can date as far back as humans’ symbolic systems. A “meme” is just a repeatedly shared piece of information that’s recognizable: Kirby Conrod, a professor of linguistics at Swarthmore College exemplifies a meme as, “an inside joke that [you] had with friends or an advertising jingle that’s been stuck in [your] head for 20 years.”
Political memes can include anything from Hillary Clinton’s iconic “Chillin in Cedar Rapids” Vine to Thomas Nast’s popularization of the Democratic donkey and Republican elephant in political cartoons post-Civil War. Humans simply enjoy sharing and repeating things. As creatures of habit with brains designed to seek repetition, we find social validation when we comment on shared experiences, even if those “experiences” are politicians. When memes take hold of the cultural zeitgeist, they can increase the visibility and popularity of pre-existing media or figures. So, it’s no surprise that online memes have increasingly taken a poll position in politics over the past twenty years and returned to crown Kamala Harris the meme-ified queen of Charli XCX’s “brat” summer.
Background
While memes played a part in the 2012 U.S. Presidential election, they really rose to prominence in the 2016 Presidential election. The race was incredibly divisive, and memes became a professional and propagandized way to further that divide. Almost 50% of Americans who voted for President Trump believed a rumor that Hillary Clinton was involved in child trafficking run out of a pizza restaurant, and 10% of Floridians said they were sure that Ted Cruz was the Zodiac Killer — while 28% were at least skeptical. All of this misinformation was due at least partially to the spread of memes on these topics. Since 2016, each election cycle has seen the resurgence and increased adoption of image and video-based memes. In 2018 especially, Democrats used popular online trends to spread news on policy issues and encourage voting. This 2018 media campaign targeted the tech-savvy younger generation of newly-eligible voters by reaching them online, increasing their turnout rate by 16% from 2014. The 2020 and 2022 elections followed a similar trend of online cultural engagement, galvanizing younger voters to show up to the polls in 2020 and register to vote in 2022.
President Biden and former President Trump both have a robust social media presence centralizing meme-ified content, with President Trump’s authentic methods earning him a more positive reception. President Biden’s X account famously hopped on the trend of posting a picture of his memeified alternate persona “Dark Brandon.” The account tweeted as if directly from the President using first person, and for many it fell flat. President Biden’s campaign spread the image across his social media and website, but received little viral effect, as many commenters complimented his interns and staffers as the real voice of his account. In contrast, President Trump’s campaign focused on engaging with him authentically, specifically positioning his TikTok to utilize Trump as the star, but not a direct creator of videos. His TikToks have amassed 8M+ likes with posts like influencer Logan Paul’s interview of President Trump and a “day in the life” at a Trump rally, which featured silly-angled shots of Trump in his official activities. These posts capture President Trump and his message without requiring him to post as if he stays engaged in TikTok trends, showcasing his authentic self while still engaging with younger audiences.
Politics and Connection
Memes are only one part of a generational shift towards gaining news passively through social media. About half of Generation Z, or “Gen Z”, get their news from social media feeds, and a third of Americans ages 18 to 29 consume news via TikTok. Younger generations have grown up with social media heavily integrated in their lives, making them better at spotting “fake news” online, but more predisposed to implicitly trusting their favorite social media influencers.
Popular creators and trends have the ability to spread information and influence like wildfire, the perfect combination for many political campaigns. One account, formerly known as TikTok for Biden and now Gen-Z for Change, brought together highly-followed content creators to elect President Biden in 2020. The account posted informational content on President Biden’s priority issues and hosted online events encouraging voter registration, using TikTok’s algorithmic promotion of popular creators to spread their content. Engaging in popular online culture, whether through influencers or memes, has the ability to engage younger voters in candidates’ issues, building visibility and credibility for these campaigns.
It’s a Kamalanomenon
If “@Harris HQ” (the Harris campaign’s Gen Z social media hub) is anything to go by, Vice President Kamala Harris’s Presidential campaign has been capitalizing on seemingly every trend available. What started with amplifying the viral audio of her “You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?” speech, has developed into a full-blown X and TikTok takeover. As image-based memes like the traditional Doge meme have died, TikTok trends utilizing a common audio or video format have risen to take its place.
VP Harris’s “coconut tree” audio was initially popularized by Republicans in clips ridiculing her. However, this audio has taken on a life of its own after her endorsement by President Biden, resulting in a tide of autotuned remixes to popular songs such as Nintendo’s “Coconut Mall” and Charli XCX’s “Von Dutch.” And this is only one example of her recent virality. What started with singer Charli XCX’s post on X crowning VP Harris as “brat” (in reference to her currently popular album) garnered 53M impressions, 55k retweets, and 332k favorites just five days later. While the VP’s official TikTok account @kamalaharris posts polished, original videos of VP Harris, another meme-based account has cropped up and dominated her social media, @kamalahq. Harris’s “HQ” on TikTok has taken up the banner, quite literally, temporarily adopting the neon green “brat” album cover aesthetic as part of their background on TikTok.
Kamala HQ, in contrast to her official account, posts zany clips of VP Harris’s media presence from late-night talk shows to soundtracked political speeches to slideshows of Harris in iconic suits set to popular feminist pop anthem “Femininomenon” by Chappell Roan leading to the rise in what TikTok has named a “Kamalanomenon.” The separation of her official, polished account from her more idiosyncratic account that dives into online culture allows VP Harris the room to remain professional while connecting with young voters in an authentic way: by having a younger generation of influencers and staffers connect to them on her behalf.
In an unprecedented race with an increasing number of voters getting exposure to candidates online, finding her mimetic niche may be the key to Kamala Harris’ success in the 2024 election.