This isn’t a joke: Based on a job itemizing, President Joe Biden’s reelection marketing campaign wants somebody to handle memes. The “Partner Manager, Content and Meme Pages” rent will “initiate and manage day-to-day operations in engaging the internet’s top content and meme pages.” The job pays as much as $85,000.
Sure, it’s absurd to be knowledgeable meme supervisor. However on this age, digital organizing is simply as helpful as canvassing IRL at a farmers market. If a candidate is attempting to satisfy voters the place they’re, then they must be on-line, the place going viral can imply connecting with hundreds of thousands of individuals. That’s why Biden’s marketing campaign has a TikTok account, although the president signed a invoice that might successfully ban the app.
“I do think that we can and should infuse relevant, trendy and fun moments into how we are communicating, especially on digital platforms,” Annie Wu Henry, a creator and digital communications strategist, instructed TechCrunch in February. “But while we’re doing that, we need to continue to be strategic and intentional and mindful, even if it’s a meme.”
Even earlier than making this rent, the Biden marketing campaign has already relied on memes to attraction to voters. The Darkish Brandon meme, which stems from alt-right conspiracy theories concerning the president, has been so ubiquitous on Biden’s marketing campaign accounts that it feels stale. However the individuals appear to like it: Final August, Darkish Brandon merch accounted for 54% of the marketing campaign retailer’s complete income, in accordance with Axios.
Former president Donald Trump has additionally embraced memes as he campaigns for his return to the White Home. When Trump’s mugshot predictably went viral, his marketing campaign instantly began promoting T-shirts, mugs and beer koozies with the picture, accompanied by textual content that claims “Never Surrender.”
Biden is way from the primary candidate to note that what occurs on-line can sway an election. For so long as social media has existed, it’s been a helpful instrument for political organizers, however the pandemic accelerated campaigns’ embrace of digital techniques. When Ed Markey (D-MA) ran for reelection to the Senate in 2020, Gen Z posters across the nation concocted “the Markeyverse,” an natural on-line motion to verify a climate-friendly senator saved his seat. In the meantime, the nameless on-line character Organizer Memes has been internet hosting meme trainings for political organizations such because the South Carolina Younger Democrats. In these trainings, contributors collaboratively make memes, focus on what makes a superb meme, and learn to use current meme templates to react in actual time to breaking political information.
Given the Biden administration’s potential to ban TikTok, younger individuals might even see via the marketing campaign’s try and woo them with memes. But when nothing else, embracing social media is proof {that a} marketing campaign is at the very least attempting to interact a youthful demographic.
