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What Is The 'Exciting Whites' Meme? Jokes About Kamala Harris's VP Options Explained
The excitement surrounding Kamala Harris's potential VP picks boiled over this week with the Harris camp finally announcing Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her Vice President.
In the days leading up to Harris's announcement, many internet users joked about the candidate's VP options, and how she had to pick between several white candidates including Shapiro, Beshear, Buttigieg and Walz ahead of the 2024 Presidential Elections.
The "Exciting Whites" reaction image was kicked around a lot in the past few days, marking the meme's first notable use outside of NBA Twitter. Here's a look at how the Exciting Whites image has been used online over the past few years and where it comes from originally.
Where Did The 'Exciting Whites' Image Come From?
In September 2021, Twitter / X user @DR0girl posted the earliest known image of a wine aisle labeled "Exciting Whites," captioning it, "When you and your friends see many jam band shows a year." The image was quickly picked up by NBA Twitter, with @byChrisJoseph joking about Tyler Herro, Duncan Robinson and Max Strus from the Miami Heat.
How Was The 'Exciting Whites' Image Used Over The Years?
Jokes about NBA players and people getting excited about innocuous and stereotypically "white" things were often subject to "Exciting Whites" jokes over the past few years, as seen in various meme edits posted to Reddit and Twitter in the early 2020s.
What's With Jokes About Kamala Harris's VP Picks Being 'Exciting Whites'?
The 'Exciting Whites' reaction image is often used to joke about a roster or group of white people, and given that Kamala Harris's options for her Vice President were primarily white men, the situation became ripe for jokes about Exciting Whites.
Jokes about Harris picking the human equivalent of a saltine cracker for a running mate bubbled over in early August 2024, with news that progressive Minnesota Governor Tim Walz will accompany the President on the Democratic nomination ticket.
For the full history of Exciting Whites, be sure to check out Know Your Meme's encyclopedia entry for more information.
