Why Has the White House Social Media Accounts Turned to Meme Posting? You’re Official Government Accounts
Babe, wake up, The White House is posting memes again, and this time Super Mario Galaxy is involved. Yes, after yesterday’s wild NASA developments, the federal government dusted off the old CapCut and decided to celebrate the occasion.
This week, Artemis II took to the sky for a mission around the moon. The Kennedy Space Center in Florida played host to NASA’s latest mission. The astronauts in question will be gone for about 10 days. However, the United States government is composed of a ton of posters now. So, With the Super Mario Galaxy Movie coming to theaters, they say the chance for some synergy?
In the clip, different moments from NASA history and yesterday’s launch are chopped up with random Mario Galaxy 1&2 highlights. It’s bizarre if you haven’t been paying attention. There’s been a link between “gamers” and the government’s embrace of more *ahem* masculine leaning virtue signaling. It’s all very early 2000s-era “Power to the Players” in its construction. (If you wonder what the heck I’m on about, check out this ancient Gamestop ad for some context.)
The White House and these Video Game Memes
A lot of this boils down to the culture of social media as currently constructed. Video games have exploded in popularity since the heyday of those Gamestop ads. Now, it’s a near universal hobby for a much larger swath of people. During the early 2000s and into the early twenty tens, subsections of gamers rebelled against their hobby’s growing popularity. Letting more grab the microphone was viewed as anathema and an online harassment network and campaign took hold.
Instead of treating that development like the five alarm fire that it ended up being, people in power shrugged as downplayed the threats as online drama. But, as anyone who’s come of age and experienced the last six years knows, things that happen on the Internet can absolutely influence the real world. In fact, they often do!
So, conservative voices targeted the disaffected males who were dissatisfied with their place in gaming culture, online spaces, and in the dating sphere. They turned those young men’s ire towards women, minorities, and anyone else who didn’t want to return to 90 style hegemony when it came to pop culture.
Now, those same communities are still carrying the banner for the Trump administration. However some of the support is starting to flag a bit as where embroiled in numerous international conflicts and prices keep rising at home.
Despite those headwinds amongst the opposition, the White House is going to continue posting Master Chief and Pokémon memes until morale improves. An easy layup for a thing with near universal approval rating like a NASA rocket launch? You can bet they were capitalizing on such an opportunity.
The White House and trolling
NASA itself has been decimated by different cuts initiated by the Donald Trump administration. It is not hyperbole to say that yesterday’s launch and successful beginning of the mission is nothing short of a miracle. Artemis II Being presented with such clarity and wonder amidst all that chaos on the ground should be commended. However, because this is the timeline we exist in, you’re going to have to sift through a bunch of goofy gamer memes as well from the federal government.
They take aim at pop stars and random citizens as well. And they’ve signaled that there’s no end to this sort of trolling in sight. Well, at least until something changes. For now, we’re all stuck watching an event that should inspire wonder, at the bare minimum. And, then rolling our eyes at the government throwing red meat to their base here planetside.
(featured image: Universal Studios)
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