Vladimir Putin Fixed Election

About

Vladimir Putin Fixed Election refers to a series of memes that make humorous observations about accusations of incumbent Russian President Vladimir Putin rigging the presidential election.

Origin

On March 18th, 2018, the country of Russia held their presidential election for which incumbent President Vladimir Putin was expected to win. Before the election, there was speculation that Putin might rig the election in his favor, and after he won by a significant margin (76% of the vote), many continued those accusations.^[1]

That day, people began posting memes about how Putin would be rigging the election so that he was, essentially, the only choice on the ballot. Twitter ^[2] user @stacy_friday tweeted, "The Russian Presidential election is being held today. Maybe that will change everything. So many choices…I wonder who will win? #RussiaElections2018 #Corruption." They included a several renditions of various cultural and stereotypical images of Putin with various names under the heading "Candidates for the 2018 Russian presidential election." The post (shown below) received more than 70 retweets and 220 likes.

Spread

Following the win, people began posting more memes of Putin's suspicious landslide victory. Twitter^[3] user @PeterSweden7 tweeted a variation of the Jeb Wins meme and the caption "In other news, Putin won the Russian election…" The post (shown below, left) received more than 130 retweets and 460 likes in two days.

The following day, on March 19th, Redditor ^[4] SpaceEV posted a photoshopped version of the video game Pokémon with three pictures of Putin and the text box "Which Pokemon do you want to choose? Putin? Putin? or Putin?" The post (shown below, center) received more than 9,000 points (98% upvoted) and 70 comments.

On March 20th, Redditor^[5] Chris_mack posted a picture of Putin raising a glass of wine with the caption "4 things people can't choose: – parents – nationality – appearance – the president of Russia" in the /r/MemeEconomy subreddit. The post (shown below, right) received more than 12,000 points (88% upvoted) and 130 comments.

Various Examples

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External References