About

Biden Bolt refers to exploitable an image of United States President Joe Biden performing a video-game-like moves resembling casting a blast. Spawned by a viral YouTube thumbnail in late 2021, the format achieved virality on Twitter in February 2023 alongside the Biden Shout meme, and is part of the Biden Moveset series.

Origin

On November 30th, 2021, YouTuber^[1] Michael Knowles uploaded a video titled "Biden Bans African | Ep. 895" in which he reviewed a ban on travel from seven African countries over the spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19. The video, which garnered 188,000 views, used a photoshopped image of President Joe Biden holding out his hand in a "stop" gesture (video and thumbnail shown below, left and right).

On December 9th, 2021, Redditor The_AFL_Yank then posted the thumbnail to the /r/ToiletPaperUSA^[2] subreddit, where it gained over 430 upvotes in one year (shown below, left). On December 18th, iFunny^[3] user Flev posted the earliest found meme based on the image, combining it with "Heaven Is a Place on Earth" by Belinda Carlisle. The post accrued over 980 smiles in one year (shown below, right).

Spread

The image did not see significant spread until December 28th, 2022, when Twitter^[4] user @brycecarringto5 used a crop of Joe Biden holding out his hand as a reaction image in an argument with Twitter user @_z3gr0_, captioning the image, "Don't care nigga get Biden blasted." The reply gained over 20 retweets and 160 likes in a month (shown below). On January 6th, 2023, @brycecarringto5 posted^[5] a screenshot of their tweet, with the post gaining over 200 retweets and 2,300 likes in one month.

On February 4th, 2023, Twitter^[6] user @Kazoodingus posted the image, captioning it, "It’s over, kid バイデンブラスト[BIDEN BLAST]." The post gained over 3,700 retweets and 13,900 likes in one week (shown below).

The viral tweet prompted usage of the image as an exploitable as users edited it with references to various anime and video game franchises. On February 6th, 2023, Twitter^[7] user @_komakuma posted the screenshot of @brycecarringto5's tweet with a Kamehameha edited in. The post gained over 1,800 retweets and 14,700 likes in four days (shown below, left). On February 7th, Twitter^[8] user @TheNumberFour4 posted a Melty Blood edit of the image that gained over 740 retweets and 2,900 likes in three days (shown below, right).

Biden Bolt

On February 7th, 2023, Twitter^[9] user @ImLazyAsHell posted an AI-generated image of Joe Biden running at high speed, captioning it, "You won't get away this time, バイデンボルト[BIDEN BOLT]," which referenced @Kazoodingus's Biden Blast tweet posted three days earlier. The tweet (shown below) gained over 4,600 retweets and 27,900 likes in three days.

Similar to Biden Blast, the image has gained popularity as source material for edits. For example, on February 9th, Twitter^[10] user @nescartridges posted a Pizza Tower edit that gained over 530 retweets and 3,200 likes in one day (shown below, left). On February 8th, Twitter^[11] user @turntipspam made a tweet describing Biden Blast, Biden Bolt and Biden Shout, an earlier meme based on an AI-generated image of Joe Biden screaming, as "Biden's moveset." The post gained over 5,700 retweets and 35,800 likes in two days (shown below, right).

Related Memes

Biden Shout

Biden Shout refers to an AI-generated image of U.S. President Joe Biden screaming as an explosion takes place behind him. The image, created with Midjourney, gained virality as a reaction image online.

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References