Bernie vs. Hillary: What's in a meme?

By Sarah Guenther
Feb 14, 2016
2 min read

Look back at any presidential campaign in the last 60 years, and you’re bound to see ad after ad attacking the “other” candidate. This is a trend that began in the 1950s and 60s with candidates like Eisenhower and Nixon.

Flash forward to today, and these attacks are not only aired on television and radio, but on social media and the Internet as well. Twitter and Facebook have become the premiere platforms for these smear campaigns. Perhaps best known for attacking his fellow candidates in the 2016 election is Donald Trump, who makes backhanded comments on Twitter almost daily.

The advent of the Internet also introduced memes, which are “concepts or ideas that spread virally from one person to another via the Internet.” Memes often come in the form of a picture with some kind of witty text or caption, and spread quickly due to people sharing them on social media.

A meme titled “Bernie or Hillary?” has surfaced on the Internet in the past few weeks. People are sharing the meme left and right, which informs voters on the real issues. These issues range anywhere from the candidates’ opinions on beloved franchises like Harry Potter and Star Wars to random topics like space vampires and wolves.

The meme was first shared on a Tumblr page called Obvious Plant, which was created by Jeff Wysaski. It took off in a matter of days and has now been shared all over the Internet, with people generating their own versions.

While the meme is viewed as a joke by many, some people have accused it of being sexist. Each meme shows Sanders touting his passionate and well-informed opinion about an issue, while Clinton merely shares her shallow and mainstream views on the topic. Some people have asked the question: why does the meme have to portray Hillary as unfunny and uneducated about pop culture references, while Bernie gets to be the “cool” guy?