About

Politico's Bernie Sanders / Chevy Chase Illustration refers to an artistic rendering of Bernie Sanders tweeted by political blog Politico after Sanders was named the victor of the New Hampshire Democratic Presidential Primary presidential-primary. The drawing reminded many of actor Chevy Chase, leading "Chevy Chase" to trend on Twitter.

Origin

On February 11th, Bernie Sanders won the New Hampshire 2020 Democratic Primary.^[1] In Politico's announcement of the result, they included an illustration of the Senator.

Spread

Quickly, Twitter users pointed out that the illustration looked like actor Chevy Chase. Twitter user @jbillinson^[2] tweeted "Congratulations Chevy Chase on winning New Hampshire," gaining over 1,700 retweets and 7,400 likes (shown below, left). User @canaryfilmmaker^[3] made a similar joke, gaining over 290 retweets and 1,900 likes (shown below, right).

The tweet led "Chevy Chase" to trend on Twitter that evening.^[4] To people who were not aware of Politico's tweet, this gave off the impression that something had happened to the actor. Many tweets from the evening came from people discovering why Chevy Chase was trending and expressing gratitude nothing bad happened to him. For example, user @icoolcam101^[5] posted a video of a clown, expressing how he felt thinking Chase had died, gaining over 440 retweets and 2,500 likes (shown below, left). User @gimili101^[6] tweeted a GIF of Denzel Washington expressing relief, gaining over 70 retweets and 950 likes (shown below, right).

Chase himself responded to his name trending, writing, "Frankly, I also won NY, RI, FL and Canada. Can't blame you if you don't know; nobody seemed interested in publishing it."^[7]

Various Examples

Search Interest

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External References