WThe Barack Obama "Joker" poster is a heavily manipulated and doctored image of former United States President Barack Obama, designed by Firas Alkhateeb in January 2009, that was adopted by some critics of the Obama administration and described as the most famous anti-Obama image. The image portrays Obama as comic book supervillain Joker, based on the portrayal by Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight (2008). Alkhateeb has said the image was not intended to make a political statement. He uploaded the image to the photo-sharing website Flickr, from where it was downloaded by an unknown individual who added the caption "socialism".
WBeck v. Eiland-Hall was a case filed in 2009 before the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), a United Nations agency. It was filed by political commentator Glenn Beck against Isaac Eiland-Hall, concerning the website "GlennBeckRapedAndMurderedAYoungGirlIn1990.com". Eiland-Hall created the site as a parody to express the view that Beck's commentary style challenged his guests to prove a negative. The site's name was based on a joke first used by comedian Gilbert Gottfried at the 2008 Comedy Central Roast of Bob Saget, in which Gottfried jokingly implored listeners to disregard the (non-existent) rumor that Saget had raped and murdered a girl in 1990. Online posters began an Internet meme comparing Gottfried's joke with Beck's style of debate, by requesting Beck disprove he had committed the act in question. Eiland-Hall launched his website on September 1, 2009.
WIn January 2021, a photograph of Bernie Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont and former presidential candidate, seated during the inauguration of Joe Biden and wearing distinctive mittens, went viral. The photograph became an Internet meme, inspiring altered versions in which Sanders was placed in historical photographs and other humorous contexts. The popularity of the meme resulted in increased visibility for Sanders and demand for the mittens.
WBernie Sanders' Dank Meme Stash is a Facebook group where members share and discuss Internet memes relating to American politician and United States senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders. Sanders was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, as well as the 2020 U.S. presidential election. As of January 23, 2020, the group had about 388,441 members. As of December 21, 2020, this page has either been deleted or removed from public view, making the number of members unknown.
WJoe Biden was a recurring fictionalized characterization of the American politician of the same name in The Onion, a satirical newspaper that publishes humorous parodies of current events. Between 2009 and 2019, The Onion staff consistently portrayed Biden as an outrageous character who shared almost nothing in common with his namesake besides the title of vice president of the United States. Instead, the publication portrayed Biden as a blue-collar "average Joe", an affable "goofy uncle", a muscle car driver, an avid fan of the 1980s hair metal, a raucous party animal, a shameless womanizer, a recidivistic petty criminal, and a drug-dealing outlaw. The Biden character became one of The Onion's most popular features during the Obama presidency, garnering critical acclaim and a large readership.
W"Binders full of women" was a phrase used by Mitt Romney on October 16, 2012, during the second U.S. presidential debate of 2012. Romney used the phrase in response to a question about pay equity, referring to ring binders with résumés of female job applicants submitted to him as governor of Massachusetts. The phrase was depicted by Romney's detractors and the Obama campaign as demeaning and insensitive toward women and was widely mocked. This prompted the phrase's use for political attacks on Romney's positions on "women's issues", as well as the development of an Internet meme.
WThe Bowling Green massacre is a fictitious incident of terrorism mentioned by Kellyanne Conway, then-Counselor to the President of President Donald Trump, in interviews with Cosmopolitan and TMZ on January 29, 2017, and in an interview on the MSNBC news program Hardball with Chris Matthews on February 2, 2017. Conway cited it as justification for a travel and immigration ban from seven Muslim-majority countries enacted by United States President Donald Trump. However, no such massacre occurred. The day after the interview, Conway said she misspoke and had been referring to the 2011 arrest of two Iraqi refugees in Bowling Green, Kentucky, on charges including "attempting to provide material support to terrorists and to al-Qaeda in Iraq". She stated that she had mentioned the incident because it led President Barack Obama to tighten immigration procedures for Iraqi citizens.
WOn December 14, 2008, Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi threw both of his shoes at United States President George W. Bush during an Iraqi press conference. Bush quickly ducked, avoiding being hit by either of the shoes. The second shoe hit the US flag, and Al-Zaidi was subsequently grabbed, kicked, and hurried out of the room by guards. Effigies of many United States Presidents had long appeared with shoes on them all over the Middle East, but it was not until this event that shoeing had received widespread notability. Since then, there have been many other shoeing incidents on an international scale. Al-Zaidi received a three-year prison sentence, which was reduced to two years. On September 15, 2009, after nine months of incarceration, he was released early because he had no prior criminal record.
WCall Me Dave: The Unauthorised Biography of David Cameron is a 2015 book by Michael Ashcroft, a businessman and Conservative peer, and Isabel Oakeshott, a political journalist, about the then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, David Cameron. The book, excerpts from which were published in the Daily Mail prior to publication, received significant media attention, particularly relating to allegations made about Cameron. It is published by Biteback, a company in which Ashcroft has a majority share, run by political blogger Iain Dale.
WThe Dean scream, also known as "I Have a Scream," was a speech delivered by Vermont governor Howard Dean on January 19, 2004 at the Val-Air Ballroom in West Des Moines, Iowa. That night, the presidential candidate had just lost the Iowa caucus to John Kerry and wanted to reassure his supporters. He listed states he would win to a raucous audience before screaming "Yeah!!!" Within four days, it was broadcast 633 times on national news networks and cable channels. The audio used in the airings of the scream was from Dean's unidirectional microphone, which decreased the volume of the background noise to the point where only Dean's voice was audible; this did not reflect the actual volume of the room that night, as the crowd was extremely loud.
WDownfall is a 2004 German-language historical war drama film directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel from a screenplay by its producer, Bernd Eichinger. It is set during the Battle of Berlin in World War II, when Nazi Germany is on the verge of defeat, and depicts the final days of Adolf Hitler. The cast also stars Alexandra Maria Lara, Corinna Harfouch, Ulrich Matthes, Juliane Köhler, Heino Ferch, Christian Berkel, Alexander Held, Matthias Habich, and Thomas Kretschmann. The film is a German-Austrian-Italian co-production.
WOn Thursday, August 30, 2012, American actor and director Clint Eastwood gave a speech at the Republican National Convention. Eastwood had endorsed Mitt Romney for the 2012 United States presidential election earlier that month, and spent much of his speech's running time on a largely improvised routine in which he addressed an empty chair that represented President Barack Obama. The speech, broadcast in a prime time slot, was viewed live by around 30 million people. It generated many responses and much discussion.
WA photograph of then-Labour Party leader Ed Miliband eating a bacon sandwich became a source of sustained commentary and the subject of an internet meme in 2014 and 2015. Taken for the London Evening Standard newspaper while Miliband was campaigning for local elections in May 2014, the image became well-known following the popular perception of it as making Miliband appear awkward, error-prone and incapable of performing simple tasks.
W"Epstein didn't kill himself" is a phrase referring to various conspiracy theories surrounding the death of Jeffrey Epstein that dispute the official ruling of suicide by hanging. Epstein was an American financier and convicted sex offender with connections to several other powerful and wealthy figures, and his reported suicide generated numerous theories about the true nature and cause of his death. The phrase itself became an Internet meme through widespread circulation, gaining traction in November 2019 as more of the circumstances around his death became public. The most common conspiracy theory surrounding his death asserts that the true cause of his death was homicide via strangulation, arranged by one or more co-conspirators to silence him.
WEvery Second Counts is the name under which a parody video contest amongst European satirical late-night talk shows was launched by German comedian Jan Böhmermann's Neo Magazin Royale on 2 February 2017. The goal is to ridicule U.S. President Donald Trump, especially his inaugural statement that "From this day forward, it's gonna be only America first! America first!" by introducing one's own country with a dose of self-deprecating humour and requesting to become 'second' after America.
WOn November 7, 2020, four days after the United States presidential election, Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York City and an attorney for then-president Donald Trump, hosted a press conference at Four Seasons Total Landscaping, a small business in the Holmesburg neighborhood of Near Northeast Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The event was held at the company's garage door and parking lot to discuss the status of the Trump campaign's legal challenges to the ballot-counting process in the state, where the president's early election lead over Joe Biden had shifted to a shortfall as mailed-in ballots were counted for Philadelphia, historically a heavily Democratic city.
WBenjamin R. Garrison is an American alt-right political cartoonist. His cartoons have been promoted among the alt-right for various depictions of alt-right ideology and QAnon conspiracy theories. He has produced controversial cartoons that have been widely characterized as sexist, racist, Islamophobic, anti-vaccine and antisemitic by media commentators, the Anti-Defamation League, and others. They have also been criticized for attempting to deny climate change, and promoting conspiracy theories. His cartoons often lionize conservative figures and politicians such as former President Donald Trump. Some alt-right activists have edited his comics to incorporate antisemitic content, including the antisemitic "Happy Merchant" caricature.
WGodwin's law, short for Godwin's law of Nazi analogies, is an Internet adage asserting that "as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler becomes more likely. That is, if an online discussion goes on long enough, sooner or later someone will compare someone or something to Adolf Hitler or his deeds, the point at which usually dampens discussion.
WThe Grass Mud Horse or Cǎonímǎ (草泥馬) is a Chinese Internet meme created as a mocking protest against Internet censorship and the Great Firewall.
WHandforth Parish Council is the parish council for the civil parish of Handforth in Cheshire.
WBernard Sanders is an American politician who has served as the junior United States senator from Vermont since 2007 and as U.S. Representative for the state's at-large congressional district from 1991 to 2007. He is the longest-serving independent in U.S. congressional history, although he has a close relationship with the Democratic Party, having caucused with House and Senate Democrats for most of his congressional career. Sanders unsuccessfully sought the Democratic Party nomination for president of the United States in 2016 and 2020, finishing in second place in both campaigns. Before his election to Congress, he was mayor of Burlington, Vermont.
W"Internets", also known as "The Internets", is a Bushism-turned-catchphrase used humorously to portray the speaker as ignorant about the Internet or about technology in general, or alternatively as having a provincial or folksy attitude toward technology. Former United States President George W. Bush first used the word publicly during the 2000 election campaign. The term gained cachet as an Internet humor meme following Bush's use of the term in the second 2004 presidential election debate on October 8, 2004.
WThe assassination of Qasem Soleimani, an Iranian major general, took place on 3 January 2020 when the United States launched a drone strike at Baghdad International Airport that targeted and killed Soleimani while purportedly on his way to meet Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi in Baghdad. Soleimani was commander of the Quds Force, one of five branches of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and was considered the second most powerful person of Iran, subordinate to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Five Iraqi nationals and four other Iranian nationals were killed alongside Soleimani, including the deputy chairman of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) and commander of the Iran-backed Kata'ib Hezbollah militia, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis – a person designated as a terrorist by the U.S. and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
WThe Jesusland map is an Internet meme created shortly after the 2004 U.S. presidential election that satirizes the red/blue states scheme by dividing the United States and Canada into "The United States of Canada" and "Jesusland". The map implies the existence of a fundamental political divide between contiguous northern and southern regions of North America, the former including both the socially liberal Canada and the West Coast, Northeastern, and Upper Midwestern states, and suggests that these states are closer in spirit to Canada than to the more conservative regions of their own country. The Freakonomics blog opined that the map reflected the "despair, division, and bitterness" of the election campaign and results. Slate also covered the image and posited that it might be the reason the Canadian immigration website received six times its usual page views the day after the election.
W"Let the Issues Be the Issue" was an American viral political advertising campaign by the New York division of the Grey Group that focused around the 2008 U.S. Presidential election. Tor Myhren, a Creative Director within the group, devised the campaign. In the ads, Democratic candidate Barack Obama and Republican candidate John McCain had their races swapped, with McCain as an African-American and Obama as a Scots-Irish American.
WMac Tonight is a fictional character used in the marketing for McDonald's restaurants during the mid-1980s. Known for his crescent moon head, sunglasses and piano-playing, the character used the song "Mack the Knife" which was made famous in the United States by Bobby Darin. Throughout the campaign, Mac was performed by actor Doug Jones in his fourth Hollywood job and voiced by Roger Behr.
W"Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" is a song written and recorded by Paul Leka, Gary DeCarlo and Dale Frashuer, attributed to a then-fictitious band they named "Steam". It was released under the Mercury subsidiary label Fontana and became a number one pop single on the Billboard Hot 100 in late 1969, and remained on the charts in early 1970.
WNational Bolshevism, whose supporters are known as National Bolsheviks, NatBols or NazBols, is a political movement that combines elements of fascism and Bolshevism.
W"Nevertheless, she persisted" is an expression adopted by the feminist movement, especially in the United States. It became popular in 2017 after the United States Senate voted to silence Senator Elizabeth Warren's objections to confirmation of Senator Jeff Sessions as U.S. Attorney General. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made this remark in defense of the silencing, during his comments following the vote.
WNew Urbanist Memes for Transit-Oriented Teens, also known as NUMTOT or Numtots and variations by its members, is a Facebook group dedicated to discussion, Internet memes, and general discourse surrounding New Urbanism and public transport. As of December 2020, the group has more than 213,000 members.
WNPC, derived from Non-Player Character in video games and from role playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons, is an Internet meme that represents people who do not think for themselves or do not make their own decisions; it is also known as NPC Wojak. The NPC meme, which graphically is based on the Wojak meme, was created in July 2016 by an anonymous author and first published on the imageboard 4chan, where the idea and inspiration behind the meme were introduced.
WO1G is a meme that become a political symbol of the public protests against the Viktor Orbán-led government of Hungary. O1G abbreviates the popular term in the country Orbán egy geci, which translates as Orbán is a motherfucker in English, with egy meaning a as well as one while geci literally means cum/jizz. The abbreviation has become a communication tool in international politics, after Guy Verhofstadt, the leader of the Liberal faction of the European Parliament, used the #O1G hashtag in a Twitter message supporting the Hungarian anti-government demonstrations.
WVeníamos bien, pero de golpe pasaron cosas or simply abbreviated as pasaron cosas, is a phrase that was uttered by Mauricio Macri, former president of Argentina on 17 June 2018 during an interview with Jorge Lanata, well-known for being a fervent opponent of kirchnerism as well of the austere policies of Macri, while trying to justify the worsening of the country's economic situation in the last two months, in which an exchange rate run occurred that culminated in the resignation of the president of the Central Bank of Argentina, Federico Sturzenegger on 14 June, while resigning to the post, it was left an erratic accumulated inflation of 95% and a devaluation of the peso of 175%. By pronouncing the phrase, Macri sought to release the government from any responsibility regarding the country's crisis, stating that it was the product of a greater worldwide situation, in which the world was in a "very volatile financial situation", remainings of the financial crisis of 2007–2008.
WPepe the Frog is an Internet meme consisting of a green anthropomorphic frog with a humanoid body. Pepe originated in a 2005 comic by Matt Furie called Boy's Club. It became an Internet meme when its popularity steadily grew across Myspace, Gaia Online and 4chan in 2008. By 2015, it had become one of the most popular memes used on 4chan and Tumblr. Different types of Pepe include "Sad Frog", "Smug Frog", "Angry Pepe", "Feels Frog", and "You will never..." Frog. Since 2014, "Rare Pepes" have been posted on the "meme market" as if they were trading cards.
W"Person, woman, man, camera, TV" is a phrase that then-U.S. President Donald Trump used several times during a July 22, 2020, Fox News interview with Marc Siegel, a professor of medicine at New York University. Trump used the phrase while describing part of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), a cognitive test used for detecting cognitive impairment, that he took at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in 2018.
W"Piggate" refers to an uncorroborated anecdote that during his university years former British Prime Minister David Cameron inserted his penis and/or testicles into a dead pig's mouth as part of an initiation ceremony for the Piers Gaveston Society at Oxford University. The anecdote was reported by Michael Ashcroft and Isabel Oakeshott in their unauthorised biography of Cameron, Call Me Dave, attributing the story to an anonymous Member of Parliament who was a "distinguished Oxford contemporary" of Cameron's. Extracts from the book were published in the Daily Mail on 20 September 2015, prior to its publication.
WPolandball, also known as countryballs, is an art style occasionally used in online comics, in which countries are typically personified as spherical characters decorated with their country's flag. The characters often interact in broken English, commonly known as Engrish The dialog typically uses regional and/or national variations, depending on the region the character represents The characters poke fun at national stereotypes and international relations, as well as historical conflicts. Countryballs have also been used in videos and comics involving alternate and speculative history. It is an Internet meme which originated on the /int/ board of German imageboard Krautchan.net in the latter half of 2009. The comics style may be referred to both as Polandball and countryball.
WDuring the presidential election of the United States in 2004, Google bombs were used to further various political agendas. Two of the first were the "miserable failure" Google bomb linked to George W. Bush's White House biography and the "waffles" Google bomb linked to John Kerry's website.
W¿Por qué no te callas? is a phrase that was uttered by King Juan Carlos I of Spain to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, at the 2007 Ibero-American Summit in Santiago, Chile, when Chávez was repeatedly interrupting Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's speech. Following international attention, the phrase became an overnight sensation, gaining cult status and meme status as a mobile-phone ringtone, spawning a domain name, a contest, T-shirt sales, a television program and YouTube videos.
WThe "State Anthem of the Soviet Union" was the national anthem of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the regional anthem of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic from 1944 to 1991, replacing "The Internationale". Its original lyrics were written by Sergey Mikhalkov (1913–2009) in collaboration with Gabriel El-Registan (1899–1945), and its music composed by Alexander Alexandrov (1883–1946). Following a two-decade interval in which the anthem was performed without lyrics, a second set of lyrics, also written by Mikhalkov, was adopted in 1977.
W"Strong and stable" or "strong and stable leadership" was a phrase often used by the British Prime Minister Theresa May in the run up to the 2017 United Kingdom general election.
WThe phrase "taco trucks on every corner" was used by the activist Marco Gutierrez, the co-founder of Latinos for Trump, on September 1, 2016, in comments that received widespread attention during the 2016 United States presidential elections.
WThe Ted Cruz–Zodiac Killer meme is an internet meme which circulated in 2015. A facetious conspiracy theory, the meme suggests that Ted Cruz, a United States Senator and former 2016 US presidential candidate, is the Zodiac Killer, an unidentified serial killer active in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Cruz, born in 1970, could not have committed these murders, which began before his birth. Circulators of the meme do not genuinely believe that he was the Zodiac Killer, citing the absurdity of its premise; NPR wrote that the meme captured "a feeling they have about Cruz: they think he's creepy. And they want to point that out, as clearly as they can."
WMoha, literally "admiring toad" or "toad worship", is an internet meme spoofing Jiang Zemin, former General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and paramount leader. It originated among the netizens in mainland China and has become a subculture on the Chinese internet. According to another explanation, it comes from China's social media Baidu Tieba. In the culture, Jiang is nicknamed há, or "toad", because of his supposed resemblance to a toad. Netizens who móhá call themselves "toad fans", "toad lovers" or "toad worshippers", or "mogicians" which is a wordplay on mófǎshī in Mandarin.
WTriggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us is the debut book by Donald Trump Jr.. It was published on November 5, 2019, by Center Street, a division of Hachette Book Group.
WThe Master is a recurring character in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who and its associated spin-off works. The character is a renegade alien Time Lord and the archenemy of the title character the Doctor.
WChristopher Wallace is an American journalist, and television news anchor of the Fox News program Fox News Sunday. Wallace is known for his tough and wide-ranging interviews, for which he is often compared to his father, 60 Minutes journalist Mike Wallace. As a teenager, Wallace became an assistant to Walter Cronkite during the 1964 Republican National Convention. After graduating from Harvard University, he worked as a national reporter for The Boston Globe where he was described by his boss as an "aggressive and ambitious reporter". After seeing the impact television had on news at the 1972 Republican National Convention, he focused on working on broadcast news, first at NBC (1975–1988) where he served as a White House correspondent alongside contemporaries CBS's Lesley Stahl and ABC's Sam Donaldson. Wallace also worked the anchor for NBC Nightly News and host of Meet the Press. He then worked for ABC, where he served as an anchor for Primetime Thursday and Nightline (1989–2003). Wallace is the only person to have served as host and moderator of more than one of the major U.S. political Sunday morning talk shows, which he did during his time at NBC. Since 2003, Wallace has hosted Fox News Sunday, where he has gained praise and acclaim for his interviews with politicians such as Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Russian president Vladimir Putin.
WThe Trump wall, commonly referred to as "the wall", was an expansion of the Mexico–United States barrier during the U.S. presidency of Donald Trump. Throughout his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump called for the construction of a border wall. He said that, if elected, he would "build the wall and make Mexico pay for it". Then-Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto said that Mexico would not pay for the wall.