Biden wants a memelord
Politico–Eagle-eyed observers of President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign might have noticed an unusual job posting on its website this week: “Partner Manager, Content and Meme Pages.”
Presidential campaigns have tried to insinuate themselves into the esoteric, in-joke-laden online ecosystem for years, often with dubious results: Recall Hillary Clinton, awkwardly exhorting young voters in 2016 to “‘Pokémon Go’ to the polls.” The ecosystem naturally treats disruptors a little better than incumbents; observers attributed former President Donald Trump’s shocking defeat of Clinton in part to his supporters’ mastery of “meme magic.”
The 2024 Biden campaign has already been ramping up its program from 2020 of partnering with online influencers, and the new job — paying someone a full-time salary to serve as what TechCrunch called a “seasoned meme lord” — is a tacit admission that the outside game is now the online game.