Today I will analyze a meme of the political variety. I will explain the content of the meme, why it’s effective, and how it rose to popularity. In 1998, the Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky scandal was becoming extremely popular. President Bill Clinton was allegedly being sexually intimate with his intern Monica while also being married to First Lady Hillary Clinton. Because the whole ordeal was becoming a huge deal, Clinton said during a press conference, “I did not have sexual relations”, referring to him and Monica.
Fast forward 18 years, and Hillary had a scandal while running for presidency in 2016. She deleted hundreds of personal emails that contained confidential government information regarding Benghazi as well as other topics.
Now I’ll dive into why this meme is funny and effective. This meme has a picture of Hillary Clinton speaking passionately about something, with a text at the top saying “I did not have textual relations”. This is funny and effective because it uses a play on words between “sexual” and “textual”. Both Hillary and Bill had political scandals and this meme ties them together perfectly. Once someone reads the caption, and see the picture, they instantly recognize the connection between the meme and Bill Clinton’s Monica Lewinsky scandal. That’s why it’s so effective. It allows the reader to view the meme and, with prior knowledge of the situation, understand the meaning. The reason this rose to popularity is most likely because it was made in late 2016 or 2017 when the Hillary Clinton scandal was still at its peak. She was an extremely popular figure while running for presidency in 2016 because she was the front runner of the Democratic Party. The relevancy, controversiality, and perfect play on words makes this meme a perfect political meme, and is very effective on displaying good political humor.