The inauguration of Joe Biden closes a controversial chapter in American history, but regardless of which side of the aisle you sit on, there’s one thing about the event that we can all agree on: The resulting Bernie Sanders memes are hilarious.
Senator Sanders displayed his “grumpy chic” fashion sense in an infamous image captured by photojournalist Brendan Smialowski. Bernie dons a pair of mittens made from repurposed wool sweater and recycled plastic bottles by Vermont school teacher Jen Ellis. The photo suggests a grumpy person impatient for an event to end — a feeling that we have all felt at some point in our lives.
Before long, Bernie’s pose became a viral sensation as he was photoshopped into dozens of pop culture situations, including:
Naturally, it wasn’t long before an Instagram feed dedicated to placing Bernie on iconic album covers popped up. Here are a few examples:
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I love memes like this because they’re an easy way for radio stations to tap into the pop culture zeitgeist. In this case, the Bernie meme offered radio stations an easy way to engage on the biggest conversation topic in America of the year — the election — which most stations had previously been avoiding for fear of alienating large portions of their audience. So, how did radio stations do?
Let’s take a look…
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Yes…of course we had to get in on this one. pic.twitter.com/hreOWoiV5W
— WDHA Morning Jolt (@WDHAMorningJolt) January 21, 2021
These are great examples of how much fun radio stations can have by riding the wave of a massive meme. Whether it’s the Ice Bucket Challenge, the Bottle Cap Challenge, or just a good old fashioned Rickroll, radio stations should constantly be on the lookout for viral sensations that they can take part in, and be ready to move quickly when they find one.
If your radio station created a Bernie meme, drop it in the comments — we’d love to see it!
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Photojournalist Brendan Smialowski can retire tomorrow if he sues for royalties and damages (unauthorized use of his copyrighted image).
Hopefully he’s just taking it in stride and enjoying the fame his pic is bringing him… to say nothing of the good laugh we all needed.
I read an interesting comment from him in which he said he doesn’t think that his photo is a particularly good one because the composition of the shot is off. It just goes to show you that you never know when something’s going to take off.