By Emma Velez, Staff Writer
If you’re a social media addict like me, it’s likely that you’ve seen the debate memes, or, as I fondly refer to them, “the gifs that keep on giving.”
The memes come in all forms, whether they are Mitt Romney making off-handed comments about Big Bird and keeping binders full of women, Joe Biden cackling or throwing his hands up in the air shouting “Malarkey” or Jim Lehrer losing control as a moderator.
The political spoofing also is largely bi-partisan. No gaffe or off-handed comment is free from ridicule.
From the memes that arose during the Oct. 16 presidential debate, it appears that social media is changing the political game.
“I went to a number of women’s groups and said, ‘Can you help us find folks,’ and they brought us whole binders full of women,” said Presidential candidate Mitt Romney during the debate. Within minutes, both Twitter and Tumblr accounts with the handle “binders full of women” went viral.
While these memes certainly have left me with a few chuckles, I have to ponder what the real significance of the meme and, more broadly, social media is in this presidential campaign.
Never before have networks of friends and followers been able to discuss the political game so closely with one another.
Is social media democratizing political discourse for the public, or is it working as a wedge to further drive apart liberals and conservatives?
The optimist in me wants to say that, through my political Facebook posts and tweets, I’m helping to keep my friends and followers informed, but the realist knows that I’ve lost a follower or two in the process.
This isn’t the first Presidential race that has capitalized on social media, but it may be the first where the candidates are satirized on such a large scale. Rory O’Connor, author of Friends, Followers and the Future, captured this phenomenon well during an interview with NPR.
“At the heart of every parody is a sometimes cruel truth,” O’Connor said. “Even if you look at the Biden persona online, there’s a kernel of Joe Biden that they got right and that’s what resonates.”
Time only will tell how these Internet sensations affect this year’s national election.
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