U.S.News & World Report Tumblelog

Can internet memes drive the news cycle?

Why Romney Is Losing the Meme Election

“The Internet doesn’t always choose the same moments to focus on as the political press, but binders full of women has almost unlimited meme potential,” says Ben Smith, a seasoned political journalist who is editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed, a news and social media site that is ground zero for memes. “That’s much less predictable than the old-fashioned gaffe cycle, though,” Smith told The Nation, so “there’s no reason Republicans can’t remix the remixes.” They are already trying. Since the social media binder obsession bubbled up to the traditional press—a staggering 15,000 articles cite the “binders full of women” line, according to Google News—Romney’s backers have decided to get in the digital weeds. The RNC circulated its own sarcastic picture on Wednesday, a binder of blank pages labeled “Obama’s Second-Term Agenda.”