President Joe Biden's decision to forgive at least $10,000 of student loan debt for all borrowers has generated significant backlash from critics on the right and left.

Thanks to savvy use of a ProPublica online public records access tool, however, other users have found that many critics of the student loan forgiveness move have themselves benefited from loan forgiveness on COVID pandemic-era PPP loans.

PPP recipients hearing someone else had a loan forgiven pic.twitter.com/Kge71UPfMy

— nikki mccann ramírez (@NikkiMcR) August 25, 2022

PPP loan forgiveness averaged $95,700 per borrower. https://t.co/kkLdNDa3Pe

— Ravi Mangla (@ravi_mangla) August 23, 2022

before you tweet remember ppp loan data is public.

— Rt. Hon Tyler Dinucci MP (@TylerDinucci) August 24, 2022

During the pandemic, the federal government gave out $793 billion in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans to keep businesses afloat. The vast majority of these loans (at least $742 billion of them) were forgiven by the government if businesses met certain requirements, such as not firing employees.

By comparison, the amount of student loan debt the Biden administration just forgave is around $300 billion, although estimates vary widely.

97% of PPP loans, which totaled $800 bn, won’t have to be repaid.

Apparently, Jared Kushner, Paul Pelosi, & Kim Kardashian are more worthy of loan forgiveness than the children of middle class, working class and poor Americans who had to take out debt to afford college. https://t.co/lWG5JaRda3 pic.twitter.com/0JtWTr9Age

— Briahna Joy Gray (@briebriejoy) August 23, 2022

Supporters of Biden’s decision have argued the debt cancelation will not impact inflation very much because, compared to actions the government has taken in the past few years (such as the PPP loans, or a decade-plus of quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve), the amount of debt forgiven is pretty small.

Some have also argued that like the stimulus checks given to citizens during the pandemic, the student loan debt forgiveness relieves enough suffering and hardship that it is worth the cost.

PPP Loans were forgiven because rich people benefitted from them.

Student loans will not be forgiven because rich people don’t have any of those.

Any questions?

— Dr. Victoria Dooley (@DrDooleyMD) August 23, 2022

Some Republican members of Congress, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, were criticized for railing against government handouts on Fox News and other media outlets while accepting forgiveness for loans taken out during the pandemic.

Forgiven PPP loans

Marjorie Taylor Greene: $183,504

Boebert: $233,305

Catholic Church: $3.5 billion

Joel Osteen: $4.4 million

Tom Brady: $960,855

GOP should slink away in shame for attacking Biden for forgiving $10,000 of student debt

But they won’t cuz they have no shame

— Lindy Li (@lindyli) August 25, 2022

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Dr. Oz also was forgiven of his PPP loan to the tune of $365,745 pic.twitter.com/wWjNgt3A6s

— Kerry 🇺🇦🏳️‍🌈☮️ (@kerryohkerry) August 25, 2022

ITS GOOD pic.twitter.com/h5JC1Sessl

— ONE BIG MONSTER 🧌 (@ONEBIGMONSTER_) August 25, 2022

Other notable individuals such as megachurch pastor and televangelist Joel Osteen were roasted by posters amid the pushback. Osteen has been criticized in the past for running a highly lucrative business that, because it is technically a church, does not have to pay taxes.

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Can someone explain to me why Joel Osteen, who’s church doesn’t pay taxes, got a PPP loan with our tax money?

— Lucia – Witch please!💙🖤🇺🇸🇨🇴 (@Lucialicious22) August 25, 2022

Since Joel Osteen is trending, it’s time to remember that he’s a grifting fraud who has a multimillion dollar money laundering MegaChurch, an operation that gladly took $4.4M in PPP and never paid it back. He’s one of the reasons why Churches should be taxed.

— Ricky Davila (@TheRickyDavila) August 25, 2022

Joel Osteen is a greedy, self-serving, narcissistic POS con artist. pic.twitter.com/6mn8NfuM3V

— InAMadWorldOfLostMinds (@LostMinds1111) August 21, 2022

Others clapped back at specific critics on Twitter with screenshots of ProPublica loan search results, often with the commonly used refrain “This you?”

Never getting off this app, etc etc. pic.twitter.com/ikPzyJW1CG

— rayne (@trayne_wreck) August 24, 2022

name a better duo than someone saying “it’s unfair i had to pay my student loans” and the public PPP loan debt forgiveness search

— u/transgender_marx (@JUNlPER) August 25, 2022

i know it’s not true but at this point it’s just easier to assume anyone complaining about student loan forgiveness had a ppp loan they didn’t even try to pay back pic.twitter.com/01L5gnsBDD

— andy™ (@andylevy) August 25, 2022

A number of memes also praised Dark Brandon for the decision he made.

Dark Brandon: Eliminator of the Student Loans, Destroyer of the Double Standards pic.twitter.com/jSmtyghFxL

— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) August 24, 2022

But according to recent polling, many voters are still unsure what they think of Dark Brandon, perhaps because they don't look at memes and don't know who he is.

Question: Do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of "Dark Brandon"?

8% Favorable
10% Unfavorable
68% Unsure

Echelon Insights / August 19-22 / n = 1,054

(Yes this is a real thing they asked about)

— Populism Updates (@PopulismUpdates) August 25, 2022