YoFollowing Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance, left-leaning Americans can’t stop talking about the vice president online. Memes about Kamala Harris are spreading with a speed and enthusiasm never before seen on X and Instagram.
Supercuts from his set a Call Me Mother by RuPaul. Threads of her “Veep’s funniest moments“. Collages of jokes about her for a green album cover a la Charli XCX’s Brat. Numerous references to a comment she made about a coconut tree. Previous progressive criticism of Harris has portrayed her as an incompetent sidekick a la HBO’s Veep or as an anti-progressive cop, a reference to her years as California’s top law enforcement official. But as rumors swirl about discussions of Biden withdrawing from the presidential race, social media commentary about the country’s second-in-command has become more positive, if ironically.
Kamala today, as one of her aides showed her Harris’s revival on Twitter image.twitter.com/HMpUEv7RZ5
— Abby Lee PAC Dance Company (@laxmura) July 2, 2024
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Veep clips profiling Harris now show Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) becoming president despite her years of ineptitude. Police jokes come with images of the vice president and Donald Trump’s mugshotWitness the rise of the “KHive,” a term coined by MSNBC’s Joy Reid for fans of the vice president a la Beyoncé’s Beyhive. And as the memes take a turn, so do the polls. Recent numbers indicate Harris is having a “surprise resurgence,” with more positive poll results against Trump than against Biden and everyone else Democratic candidates are rumored to include Gavin Newsom and Pete Buttigieg.
The sombre outcome of the debate is not the first time the vice president has inspired jokes on social media, though it is the loudest. A video of Harris informing Joe Biden that they had both won the 2020 election (particularly her “we did it, Joe” comment) has been a popular meme since the start of the administration.
Kamala watching CNN polls this morning image.twitter.com/5Tvy8zmF3L
— Armand Domalewski (@ArmandDoma) July 2, 2024
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Conservatives have also made jokes at the vice president’s expense for years. In a January 2022 interview about the administration’s Covid policies, she gave a tautological response: “It’s time for us to do what we’ve been doing, and that time is every day.” Fox News said she had been “crushed for not giving an answer.” The Daily Wire said she “babbles incoherently.” Ben Shapiro said on TikTok: “Every day, there’s a new Kamala Harris clip of all time.”
The recent cycle of memes, whether jokes or authentic, celebrates these kinds of verbal gymnastics, which are hallmarks of Harris’s sometimes profound, sometimes meaningless speeches. Her most popular joke involves her mother and a coconut tree. In May 2023, she said, “My mother used to… sometimes give us a hard time and say, ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with you young people. Do you think you just fell out of a coconut tree? ’ You exist in the context of everything you live through and what came before you.” The story was part of a speech about educational economic opportunities for Latin Americans; you can read the full transcript at The White House website.
A simple coconut emoji has become a shorthand way to refer to the vice president. Remakes of her coconut anecdote have become one-liners in videos, images and text on X (formerly Twitter), Instagram and TikTok, racking up tens of thousands of likes and retweets. Several of her other signature remarks have enjoyed a similar resurgence.
The Biden-Harris campaign appears to have taken note and intends to ride the virtual wave of support, though it did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The president and vice president posted a job ad on July 3 seeking a social media strategist specifically for Harris. The aide will write posts for Harris every day in an effort to “expand the vice president’s voice online,” according to the statement. Political.
— Jordan, KHIVE’s strongest soldier (@SLCLunk) July 2, 2024
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The explosion of content about Harris mirrors the way Donald Trump’s speeches and tweets spread like memes. His odd, idiosyncratic way of speaking and tweeting is a funny reference point for both the right and the left, which can be inserted into unrelated jokes for the pastiche effect of the best absurdist online humor. Outlandish rhetoric that stands out for its flourishes, whether supposedly weighty like Harris or openly bellicose like Trump, makes for a good punchline.
Another of Harris’s aphorisms appears with almost comical frequency and has entered the online frenzy about her: “What can be, without the weight of what has been.” A video of her making the comment at dozens of different public appearances — nearly four minutes of the same phrase repeated over and over — has been retweeted nearly 9,000 times.
Four straight minutes of “what can be, without the weight of what has been.” It’s incredible. I had no idea he used it so much. image.twitter.com/TClfC1EyH6
— John Cooper (@thejcoop) June 29, 2024
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Four straight minutes of “what can be, without the weight of what has been.” It’s incredible. I had no idea he used it so much. image.twitter.com/TClfC1EyH6
— John Cooper (@thejcoop) June 29, 2024
A video of her dancing alongside a drum line has also resurfaced, remixed to show her rise as Biden’s star fades. As one tweet of the video puts it: “Kamala watching CNN polls this morning.” Her signature laugh, which makes an appearance in the coconut tree tale before her demeanor and tone turn inexplicably somber, has long inspired posts highlighting her willingness to show emotion in public. Biden, by contrast, spoke in a weak, monotone throughout the debate. Faced with Trump’s gesticulation and rancor, Biden appeared gray and weak. Online observers are wondering: Could Kamala stand up to Trump, as she once did to Biden himself?
Why so much enthusiasm for Harris now? Perhaps desperation at the other two options. cheep crystallizes the reason for the rapid change in online vibes: “Who cares if she’s weird? At least she’s not a criminal and she’s not 80 years old.”
And is the pivot to Harris genuine or just a nihilistic snide in the face of an uninspiring choice? The same tweet winks at the absurdist maximalism of internet discourse: “We need a Gemini rising California president who pops pills and wine, is over the top, and didn’t get married until middle age because she was too busy being a party girl boss 365 days a year.”
Parts of the tweet are true (Harris’s rising astrological sign is Gemini), but “365 party girlboss” is a reference to Charli XCX’s Brat album, another meme of the moment. There’s also no evidence that she’s on pills.
With the Democratic machine in disarray as rumors of Biden’s resignation swirl, it’s unclear what’s next for the vice president — or America. As one tweet combining several Harris jokes puts it: fixedin an attitude of throwing exasperated hands to the sky: “God, grant me the serenity to free myself from what has been, the courage to see what can be and the wisdom to live in the context.”
