Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were sworn in as president and vice president, respectively, on Wednesday in a fanfare-filled inaugural ceremony in Washington, DC. …
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were sworn in as president and vice president, respectively, on Wednesday in a fanfare-filled inaugural ceremony in Washington, DC. But neither of them set the national meme machine churning in quite the same way as Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, whose mitten-wearing image has been shared and edited in hundreds of ways — and has even inspired a bobblehead figurine. Memes don’t often survive until a second day, but as of Thursday afternoon, Sanders’ image was still circulating and inspiring new tweaks and twists. The photo is simple — it shows Sanders wearing a familiar winter jacket, a blue face mask and a pair of gigantic mittens that were a gift to him from Vermont teacher Jen Ellis. “I made Bernie’s mittens as a gift a couple years ago,” Ellis tweeted on Wednesday. “They are made from repurposed wool sweaters and lined with fleece (made from recycled plastic bottles).” Sanders’ casual clothing and presumed grumpy, dadcore appearance inspired creative types to pop his image into all kinds of images, from scenes from The Sopranos and Forrest Gump to historical photographs. He showed up in Game of Thrones, on Chicago’s El, even as the fly on Mike Pence’s head from the October vice presidential debate. Swapping Sanders into new places got even easier when NYU grad student Nick Sawhney created a website that lets users place the image in any Google Street View photograph. Sawhney told Wired magazine that the site took off well beyond his expectations, and he panicked as its popularity brought him increased fees. (He’s accepting donations and made a deal with the cloud platform that hosts the site, and says he has enough cash on hand to keep the site alive for another week or so, Wired reports.) And mittened Bernie is going 3D. The National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum, which apparently exists, is making a bobblehead of the moment. You can preorder it now for $25, though it’s possibly by the expected May delivery you’ll have forgotten why it was even funny. The image has also found its way on to stickers. Sanders himself was absolutely true to himself when asked to comment. First, he defended his outfit to Gayle King on CBS This Morning.
