Texts From Hillary

How fitting that the last blog post for this class covers none other than Hillary Clinton aboard a military C-17 plane in the age-old art of texting. Texts From Hillary is in many ways, the quintessential meme because of its roots, its large appeal, and its surprising reach.

Here is the first known Texts From Hillary meme from the official Tumblr.



The original image of Hillary Clinton was taken by Kevin Lamarque of Reuters. Here is a link to the original story.

According to the official Tumblr, the Texts From Hillary meme has gotten 83,000 Facebook shares, 8,400 Twitter followers, and over 45,000 Tumblr followers. How's that for mass appeal?

Here's the best part. Clinton herself responded to the meme by submitting this image.



How's that for reach?

Moments like this make me in awe of the power of memes and how they can influence pop culture and even seemingly unreachable people.

I'll finish with a little anecdote. My friend Steve is a huge Oakland As fan. He's also an avid user of twitter. Somehow, over the summer, he managed to fuse both elements to create something special.

#fosseposse

Yep, Steve created his own hash tag which gained popularity over Twitter to the point where he was invited to attend an As game in Oakland. There, he got great seats to the game, was interviewed by a TV station and best of all, got to meet his boyhood idol Ray Posse in the dressing room. Amazing how Twitter and social media can open doors.

So what are you waiting for? Make your own meme, and with a little bit of luck, you could be interviewing for Good Morning America, meeting your childhood idol or texting Hillary.