Yes, Memes Actually Can Win Elections

On September 10, 2024, Donald Trump gave the internet meme-lords a line of pure gold on which they didn’t hesitate to capitalize.

“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in — they’re eating — they’re eating the cats; they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”

From out of that statement, a meme was born, and this meme succeeded in completely taking over social media the next day.

We could get into whether the statement is correct or not just by delving into various factors: police reports (pre-dating Trump’s statement) of people in Springfield (which has a large community of Haitian migrants) testifying their pet was taken and eaten by their Haitian neighbours; an eye-witness report of someone who saw a van-load of cats being driven by Haitians who admitted to police after getting pulled over that they were eating the animals; video footage obtained and confirmed by investigative journalist Chris Rufo, citing “multiple witnesses and visual cross-references,” of African migrants in Dayton, Ohio, (a city next to Springfield) barbecuing what appears to be a dead cat (with a couple live ones walking around the grill as well). I would even challenge you to do a Google search of “Haitians eating cats” or “Haitians eating dogs” and filter results predating August 2024. You’ll find numerous social media posts, articles, and videos of people attesting to the claim that some Haitians do, in fact, eat cats and dogs. There is also the aspect of witchcraft, something very prevalent in Haiti, that would potentially contribute to the veracity of Trump’s statement; former 2020 Democrat presidential nominee Marianne Williamson said on 𝕏 following the debate, “Continuing to dump on Trump because of the “eating cats” issue will create blowback on Nov. 5. Haitian voodoo is in fact real, and to dismiss the story out-of-hand rather than listen to the citizens of Springfield. [sic] Ohio confirms in the minds of many voters the stereotype of Democrats as smug elite jerks who think they’re too smart to listen to anyone outside their own silo.” (She has since deleted this post after claims that she was defending Trump, which she vehemently denied.)

However, I digress, as this isn’t pertinent to the overall point of this article. As a matter of fact, the point of this article is to say that none of the previous paragraph matters at all.

Within three days, a song by The Kiffness called “Eating the Cats ft. Donald Trump” had already gone viral online. Two days after that, another song called “Eat the Cat” by The Marine Rapper also went viral. Collectively, the two videos have amassed over 18 million views on YouTube, and they quickly became the soundtrack for social media shorts and reels.

Whether these songs were made to mock Trump or to praise him or to just poke fun at him matters theoretically but not practically. In the internet world and in the meme realm specifically, if it’s catchy and funny, it will go viral. Intention matters not, perception matters not, and logic certainly matters not. So if you were an average person who at that time paid no mind to current events and had no strong opinion for or against Donald Trump, you would have heard this sound-byte of him and maybe investigated deeper. All publicity is good publicity, as they say. This is especially true in meme culture.

It’s probably fair to assume that most people know what a meme is, but allow me to break it down briefly for anyone who might not. Memes are an essential part of social media. They can be many things; they could be an image of a specific or random person with text on the top and bottom of the image, maybe commenting on or ascribing a characteristic to the person’s facial expression. They can also be just a regular sound-byte or one-liner from a speech someone made. In those instances, it may be just the standalone 2-second clip, or it could have a song in the background or added sound effects to emphasize a particular point of the clip. Regardless, a meme is generally defined to be a piece of media with a short and witty message accompanying it.

Why do memes matter? According to multiple reports, including one from eMarketer, a marketing research company, Gen Z’s attention span as of December 2022 was 1.3 seconds long. This attention span is reportedly the lowest in any recorded age group. Long-format media does not fare well with the younger generation, which means very few of them would probably be willing to sit through a 90 minute-long debate. In this society, sound-bytes and “gotcha moments” that can be clipped and distributed on social media are the most effective for reaching younger voters. More simply put, in today’s day, memes reign supreme above all else.

If you hold the meme-power, you essentially hold the key to the younger vote. Memes gain popularity and virality (yes, this is a word) because they are short, humorous, typically easy to understand, and circulate rapidly. Memes originating from political circles typically exist to mock the irony of the other side, which brings me to my next point: the left can’t meme.

This may sound somewhat paradoxical or ironic itself, but the phrase “the left can’t meme” has itself become a meme. Leftist memes are caricatured by conservatives as usually being an image overrun with text from top to bottom. The reason for this is because their memes and general sense of humour require so much detailed explanation that the meme quickly stops becoming funny (if it ever was). As stated before, leftist memes lack the intrinsic ingredient that all memes should have: the ability to mock irony. Leftists can’t pull this off because their entire movement is ironic. It constantly contradicts itself. Since they’re not mocking their own movement but instead mocking the right, they fail, and oftentimes their memes become “self-owns” wherein they’ve exposed their own hypocritical or illogical state.

Returning to the topic at hand, many people underestimate the power that meme culture has to influence real-life culture. On the opposite side, there are many social media influencers and prominent thought leaders who understand the effect of memes and use it heavily to their advantage. Benny Johnson, an 𝕏 influencer and online journalist, is known far and wide for his meme usage and his ability to utilize political memes to both attack the left and help encourage the right. The Babylon Bee, a satirical conservative news website, thrive entirely off the popularity of memes. Even Elon Musk and Donald Trump post and circulate memes to their followers on a regular basis.

In an online world that’s dominated by users with attention spans under 2 seconds, Kamala Harris’ interviews filled with word salads will fall into the virtual dumpster of last week’s news. But a viral meme with a concise and witty message may have more of an impact on a potential voter than you might think.

Cover Image Generated by DeepAI