This isn’t a joke: In response to a job itemizing, President Joe Biden’s reelection marketing campaign wants somebody to handle memes. The “Accomplice Supervisor, Content material and Meme Pages” rent will “provoke and handle day-to-day operations in participating the web’s prime content material 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 useful as canvassing IRL at a farmers market. If a candidate is making an attempt to fulfill voters the place they’re, then they should be on-line, the place going viral can imply connecting with thousands and thousands of individuals. That’s why Biden’s marketing campaign has a TikTok account, despite the fact that the president signed a invoice that would successfully ban the app.
“I do suppose that we are able to and will infuse related, fashionable and enjoyable moments into how we’re speaking, particularly on digital platforms,” Annie Wu Henry, a creator and digital communications strategist, advised TechCrunch in February. “However whereas we’re doing that, we have to proceed to be strategic and intentional and conscious, even when it’s a meme.”
Even earlier than making this rent, the Biden marketing campaign has already relied on memes to enchantment to voters. The Darkish Brandon meme, which stems from alt-right conspiracy theories in regards to the president, has been so ubiquitous on Biden’s marketing campaign accounts that it feels stale. However the individuals appear to find it irresistible: Final August, Darkish Brandon merch accounted for 54% of the marketing campaign retailer’s complete income, in line 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 “By no means Give up.”
Biden is much 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 useful instrument for political organizers, however the pandemic accelerated campaigns’ embrace of digital ways. 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 ensure a climate-friendly senator saved his seat. In the meantime, the nameless on-line persona 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, talk about what makes a great 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 by the marketing campaign’s try and woo them with memes. But when nothing else, embracing social media is proof {that a} marketing campaign is no less than making an attempt to interact a youthful demographic.
