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For years, memes have been a fixture across social media platforms. They have become a funny, light-hearted, and trendy way to express complex thoughts. Some of them are so well-known that they are repeated over and over again. They are simply updated for whatever’s trending in the news cycle. But until now, they have never been used to win a major political election.
That might all change with the 2024 presidential election. The Trump campaign’s meme-making ability is legendary, and now the Biden campaign wants to capture some of that magic. They are hiring a so-called “meme lord” to help bring memes to life across social media. The position, officially based in Biden’s home state of Delaware, will become part of the Biden For President Campaign, and will carry a nice little salary of $85,000 per year.
Biden’s team experiments with memes
Clearly, the Biden campaign team thinks that memes represent a major opportunity with social media. They have already jumped into the TikTok influencer game, and are now experimenting with memes as a form of branding. Perhaps the one that everyone is familiar with is the “Dark Brandon” meme, which attempts to portray Biden as a dark, edgy superhero who would prefer to stay in the shadows. Just as Batman had the Dark Knight alter ego, Biden has “Dark Brandon.”
But the creation of an actual “meme lord” job with real responsibilities is something altogether. The goal of the new role, according to the job listing, is to “infuse relevant, trendy, and fun moments” into Biden’s campaign communications. The unstated goal, of course, is to help Biden go viral on social media, and to win the youth vote in 2024.
Can the Left meme?
On the surface, of course, it all sounds good. Maybe they’re overpaying a bit for a 20-something “meme lord,” but surely this new hire can do a much better job than whatever White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is doing these days.
But there’s just one problem: the Left can’t meme. This is the dirty little secret that’s all over social media. In order to meme, you have to be willing to be self-deprecating, and to laugh at yourself. And that’s something the current White House can’t seem to do. If reporters push back against the state of the economy, the current situation at the border, or deteriorating poll numbers, the Biden team can’t stand it.
Instead of admitting, yeah, things are kinda tough right now, the Biden team tries to gaslight us. They try to tell us that we don’t know what we’re seeing with our own eyes. Case in point: the new brouhaha over “deep fakes” and “cheap fakes.” We’ve all seen Biden meander around aimlessly, and struggle to get off the stage. Are we really supposed to believe that, when we’re not watching, he’s a “Dark Brandon” superhero?
As a result, every time the Left tries to meme, it comes across as cringeworthy. During the election season, any pro-Biden memes appearing on social media are likely to be drowned out by anti-Biden memes appearing on social media. Take the “Dark Brandon” meme, for example. It’s far more likely that you’re going to run across a “Let’s Go Brandon” meme anytime you’re online. In fact, the “Let’s Go Brandon” meme might end up becoming the most epic political meme of all time.
It will be interesting to see what happens next. There are only a few months left in the long presidential campaign, and plenty of swing states still up for grabs. In a razor-thin political election, is a single meme deployed across all of social media good enough to win the election?
