What's Behind the Meme Joe Biden Has Adopted for his Presidential Campaign?

US President Joe Biden declared on Tuesday that he will compete for reelection in 2024, along with a brand new campaign website. But Joebiden.com featured an unexpected thing, Biden’s alter ego, or the meme which shows the US President with blazing red eyes, as per a report by NPR.

What is the Genesis of the Meme and How Did Biden Come to Adopt It?

‘Let’s Go Brandon’

According to a Forbes report, the origins of the meme comes from when NASCAR racer Brandon Brown conducted an interview in 2021 while people in the background yelled “f*ck Joe Biden.” The interviewer misheard the slogan, assuming they were cheering on the NASCAR racer, Brandon.

In October 2021, a video of the interview went viral, spawning a meme. Anti-Biden supporters would suddenly start yelling “Let’s Go Brandon” at sporting events, and the meme spread. Former President Donald Trump soon began selling “Let’s Go Brandon” apparel.

Then, late last year, a group of Trump fans who advocated for the former Republican president to run for re-election in 2024 published a series of “Dark MAGA” memes. They typically feature an authoritarian/dictator-like version of Trump with blue laser eyes. The captions usually call for Trump to exact vengeance on his political opponents, NPR explains in its report.

Those memes created “Dark Brandon,” which featured a scary Joe Biden. They frequently display imagery of the president shooting red lasers from his eyes or wearing military gear in this context.

But the left seemed to enjoy it as well. As a result, they appropriated the concept. Democrats are now using Dark Brandon pictures to highlight Biden’s policy wins.

When the Biden Campaign Co-opted the Meme

And now, Biden is using the meme in his official presidential campaign site and has even asked his supporters to buy a $32 “dark T-shirt” that the campaign says is “best worn while vanquishing Malarkey.”

According to Aja Romano, a Vox cultural reporter who has written about the “Dark Brandon” meme, it is assisting in changing the public’s perception of the octogenarian president from a dull figure to something more interesting.

“Biden’s embrace of the Dark Brandon meme shows not only an awareness of the meme and what it represents to many of his followers, but self-awareness of how the meme livens and rejuvenates his public persona,” Romano told NPR.

“Especially as he gears up for a difficult re-election, look for him to lean even more into the ‘Dark Brandon’ meme on social media as a way of galvanizing supporters online.”

As Romano explains in his report, Democrats who began running as “Dark Brandon” evidently sought to emulate the edgy “Dark MAGA” images, blending their design with portrayals of Biden as a no-holds-barred tough leader. According to him, MAGA fans reframed Trump’s perceived fumbling incompetence as a massive masquerade, a foil for the capable strongman that lurked beneath, and now, Biden supporters are repeating the trick, portraying Biden’s perceived ineptness as a disguise for a macho, masculine warrior who gets things done.

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