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Rarely has an American political meme spread as frenziedly around the world as images of Bernie Sanders, with his legs crossed, knitted gloves and a stoic face. The doctored versions of the image have been shared since Wednesday by millions of accounts on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
The original photograph was taken by Brendan Smialowski, a photojournalist for Agence France-Presse, but the first to turn it into a meme was Naomi Otsu, a New York graphic designer who, using Photoshop, placed Sanders in a series of designs. conventional New York. Environments. These photos later spread through her boyfriend, Nicholas Heller, who has popular accounts on Instagram and Twitter.
It took place a few minutes after Sanders arrived at the ceremony on Wednesday, but five days later the images continue to spread on social media.
When a giggling host on CNN this weekend asked Sanders how he reacted by becoming a viral phenomenon, he responded in keeping with his image as a left-wing idealist:
“What we do here in Vermont is we sell T-shirts with the image and we raise millions to help programs like Meals on Wheels,” Sanders said seriously.
But this is not the first time Sanders became a viral phenomenon. Few politicians in the United States in the 21st century, not even Barack Obama and Donald Trump, have been the subject of internet memes and viral jokes with such frequency. There are many accounts on Instagram and Facebook that are only used to share new Sanders memes.
It reminds me that even if it was Joe Biden who won the presidential election, Bernie Sanders will always win the internet.
So how is it that a 79-year-old senator from Vermont has viral power that many other politicians can only dream of?
To some extent it is about personality. Voices that are perceived as authentic, people who just do their thing without paying much attention to social conventions, tend to have a faster impact on social media. There, Bernie Sanders has something in common with both Donald Trump and Greta Thunberg: voices that are also perceived as sincere and unique and cut through the noise of distractions on social media. It is precisely because they are not like all other politicians that they are popular.
Idealistic politicians who are perceived as radical or intransigent often find it easier to create commitment and dedicated crowds of supporters than cautious pragmatists. Sanders has significantly younger and more enthusiastic followers than, say, Biden or Kamala Harris and it is still among the younger users that many political memes are first created on social media.
That partly explains why Bernie’s left has so far been more powerful on social media than Biden’s traditional Democrats.
Can have real meaning for the political dynamics of the United States, as Biden now sets the ideological direction for his first year in the White House. Bernie Sanders has thus far been content with a relatively low-key, but minor, role in the Biden administration. In the Senate, Sanders has been given primary responsibility for reviewing budget processes that can be voted on by a simple majority, rather than the supermajority of 60 votes needed to avoid so-called obstructionism, a tool to stop laws in Congress. How Sanders chooses to use that power can make a clear mark on Biden’s economic policy.
But for Sanders’ political movement, it is at least as important that it remains a kind of unifying cultural force for the American left and progressive activists. This week’s photo is just the latest example of that.
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