Which Message Will Resonate With Voters?
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About
Which Message Will Resonate With Voters? is an exploitable meme format based on a 1980 graphic by the satirical news publication The Onion. The template shows political candidates in an election, depicting one promising something reasonable and the other something horrible. It has been used in history meme communities and forums to joke about historical elections and by internet users to joke about the contrast between candidates in ongoing elections.
Origin
In its book _Our Dumb Century, The Onion posted a graphic satirizing the 1980 election between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. In the graphic, Carter's campaign message reads, "Let's Talk Better Mileage," while Reagan's reads "Kill the bastards." The tagline reads, "Which message will resonate with voters?" Reagan went on to win the 1980 U.S. Presidential Election.
The graphic first began circulating on Twitter / X in the late 2010s. For example, on October 1st, 2019, Twitter user @StephenSilver[1] posted it as part of a thread outlining the Reagan-Carter election (shown below).
Spread
The format began seeing use as an exploitable on Reddit in the early 2020s. On August 15th, 2022, Redditor TrashClear483 posted a Political Compass meme using the image in the subreddit /r/politicalcompassmemes,[2] gaining over 2,000 points in two years (shown below, left). On January 23rd, 2023, Redditor tygerbug posted a Star Wars joke with the template in /r/PrequelMemes,[3] gaining over 1,700 points in 18 months (shown below, right).
The template proved popular in /r/HistoryMemes, where it was used to satirize specific elections from history. For example, on June 8th, 2024, Redditor IllustriousDudeIDK[4] posted a template to the subreddit parodying the 1832 Presidential election between Henry Clay and Andrew Jackson, gaining over 520 points in six weeks (shown below, left).
On July 24th, Twitter user @Aristos_Revenge[5] posted a meme about Kamala Harris and Donald Trump using the template, gaining over 690 retweets and 13,000 likes in less than one day (shown below, right).
Various Examples
Search Interest
External References
[1] Twitter – StephenSilver
[2] Reddit – /r/politicalcompassmemes
[3] Reddit – /r/prequelmemes
[4] Reddit – /r/HistoryMemes
[5] Twitter – Aristos_Revenge
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