Blog 1: Bernie Sanders Dank Meme Stash

Moriah Goldblatt

Blog 1

Advanced Mass Communication Theory

Bernie Sanders Dank Meme Stash

            Presidential election season is always a good time to be a meme or political cartoon creator. There are plenty of quotes, issues and mistakes made by candidates that are prime picks to make fun of. This is often furthered by the campaign strategy of the candidate. Sometimes the campaign strategy is good, sometimes it’s not. And other times, the candidate will get people campaigning for him or her without the candidate’s knowledge. In this current election, for example, the practice of grassroots campaigning combines with the millennial generation and the online phenomenon known as memes to create what can only be described as the best Facebook group to ever exist: Bernie Sanders Dank Meme Stash. Bernie Sanders Dank Meme Stash is a piece of media that is important because it shows how social media and our generation has the power to change the upcoming election. The group is filled with memes and gifs that are layered with political, social and economic importance that the young generation of voters can really relate to.

What it is

Bernie Sanders Dank Meme Stash is a Facebook group for the Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders’ supporters to post memes, articles, videos, and other pro-Bernie content. The Dank in Dank Meme Stash refers to the quality of the meme- how good it is in commenting on or poking fun at a particular issue or other candidate. The Facebook group brings together voters from across the nation in order to share modern political satire in the form of these memes. In order to understand how important this Facebook group is and how it’s affecting the upcoming election, first we must discuss what a meme is and their place in communication and society. A meme is any piece of imagery, text or video that is copied and manipulated and then spread rapidly over the internet. Memes pull from popular culture to relate to their audience, and most often that audience is the younger generations in America. Radio host John Perry explains the purpose of a meme by comparing them to genes. He says, “Memes are self-replicating too.  But what they encode is not instructions for building proteins in our bodies, but instructions for building behaviors, beliefs, and emotions into our brains” (Perry). Memes help to establish social behaviors, not only on the internet but in our lives too. Memes are all over the internet and after seeing them constantly in our Facebook or Twitter feed, their messages and implications affect us.

Why do we Like Bernie?

So how did Bernie Sanders Dank Meme Stash become a vehicle for social change? We need to look first at why young people support Bernie Sanders and would feel strong enough to create a social media campaign for him. Many young people in America right now are angry, fed up and want change. But not just any change. They want a revolution. They want to see actionable results that allow them to feel the burden of society and debt lifted

from their shoulders, and Bernie Sanders is the one candidate on the Democratic side that agrees and goes with these young people. In an article from Bloomberg View, writer Cass Sunstein tries to explain why so many young people are attracted to Bernie Sanders. He writes, “to some young people, his candidacy is irresistibly attractive… because they are drawn to one thing: his unmistakable sense of outrage at how things are” (Sunstein). Bernie embodies the unrest and anger that a lot of young people are feeling currently. Even Bernie’s campaign taglines like “Join the Revolution” or “This is your movement” embrace the feelings and atmosphere of young people right now (Sanders). That is why young people feel so strongly about Bernie. He is answering the call for change with the same gusto in which we young people feel we need it.

Social Media and Politics

Now that we understand why young people support Bernie, we must look at how social media affects politics and the political atmosphere to really understand why Bernie Sanders Dank Meme Stash is so important. Social media is a relatively new form of

mediated communication. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, social media is defined as, “forms of electronic communication (as Web sites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (as videos)” (Merriam-Webster). Mostly when we think of social media we think of Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. While these apps are forms of social media, so is Bernie Sanders Dank Meme Stash. This Facebook group is an electronic form of communication where people interact, share ideas, and create memes (online content).

Social media in general impacts politics and the political atmosphere almost daily, but this specific form of social media is having a great impact on the ongoing Presidential Election as well. We know that the internet is very successful in bringing likeminded people together (Harris, 256).  We see this with Bernie Sanders Dank Meme Stash. Likeminded people come together to create the Facebook group and the content of that group. We’ve also already seen social media impact a presidential election before. President Barack Obama used social media effectively to help win him the presidency in 2008, and so far the same outcome is happening in this one. According to Lisa Harris and Paul Harrigan, “Obama's campaign was the first to truly understand and harness the power of sharing and communicating using social media to engage, involve, and empower voters because it enabled trust to be taken to a level rarely seen in politics” (258). Social media can be a very powerful tool for politicians. No other form of communication has the same reach, interactivity level and effectiveness than social media.

We see this tool being used in a very similar way with Bernie Sanders’ campaign as well. Bernie Sanders Dank Meme Stash isn’t even an official part of his campaign; it is created and run by his constituents. However, the importance of this social media platform is unparalleled because of it. It’s a grassroots, bottom up platform and that says a lot about a candidate. In their study, Harris and Harrigan found that, “As our example constituencies showed, at the local level social media played a role in lots of small ways, through using Facebook to get more young people to register to vote or Twitter to organize canvassing” (273). One issue seen time and time again in elections is that young people don’t vote. They support a candidate and share their ideas, but they aren’t registered to vote. In an article in USA Today, columnist Collin Brennan writes, “According to the US Census Bureau, young adult voters between the ages of 18 through 24 have consistently voted at lower rates than all other age groups in every presidential election since 1962” (Brennan). When you have this pattern of behavior, its super important to know that social media can spur young people to vote! That is why Bernie Sanders Dank Meme Stash is so important and affecting the primary elections so much: this form of social media has the power to get young voters to actually vote! We’ve already seen this happen in the primaries so far! Bernie won the Kansas primary after a record setting voting turnout (Cahill). A lot of the memes in the Facebook group are telling people to get out and vote. They are calling and asking for actions of the group members, not just to sit at one’s computer and “like” a meme.

Memes are instructions for building our behaviors, and when we see memes that encourage us to go out and vote, or support a specific candidate, we listen. Social media plays a huge role in our everyday lives, and we can see right now, as its happening, that it’s playing a role in the current Presidential election. Bernie Sanders Dank Meme Stash is an important piece of media because it shows the influence that social media has on young people. Young people do care, and when they care enough to create and run a Facebook with over 386,000 they will enact change.

Works Cited

Brennan, Collin. "Why College Students Aren't Voting (and Why It Matters)." USA TODAY College. USA TODAY, 25 Sept. 2015. Web. 07 Mar. 2016.

Cahill, Tom. "Bernie Sanders Wins Kansas Caucuses in Record Voter Turnout." U.S. Uncut. N.p., 05 Mar. 2016. Web. 07 Mar. 2016.

Dowd, Will, and Tyler Kruse. "Bernie Sanders Dank Meme Stash." Facebook. N.p., Nov. 2015. Web. 07 Mar. 2016.

Harris, Lisa, and Paul Harrigan. "Social Media in Politics: The Ultimate Voter Engagement Tool or Simply an Echo Chamber." Journal of Political Marketing 14.3 (2015): 251-83. Taylor and Francis Online. Web.

Perry, John. "Memes and the Evolution of Culture." Audio blog post. Philosophy Talk. Stanford University, 2013. Web.

Sanders, Bernie. "Bernie Sanders." Bernie Sanders 2016. Bernie Sanders, n.d. Web. 07 Mar. 2016.

"Social Media Definition." Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Merriam-Webster, 2015. Web.

Sunstein, Cass. "What Millennials Like About Bernie Sanders." BloombergView.com. Bloomberg LP, 1 Feb. 2016. Web. 07 Mar. 2016.