Twitter Finds Humor in 2016 Election
Millennia’s nationwide, liberal or conservative came together on Twitter, the night of 2016’s Presidential Election. They might not be a part of the same political party, but they sure did share the same view of how serious they took this particular election.
In previous elections, social media didn’t have as big of an impact as it does on today’s society, and its impact is only going to grow stronger. According to the website USA Today, through 3 am ET when Trump claimed victory, more than 75 million election-related tweets coursed through Twitter, smashing the record set on Election Day in 2012 of more than 31 million tweets total.
Scrolling through Twitter the night of the election, I couldn’t help but see teenagers making a joke out of this election, rather than taking it seriously. Tweets went viral that ranged from making fun of the opposing candidates to tweets of making fun of the entire election.
For some people, making fun of the election was a coping method to take away the stress of anxiously waiting for the final results. For other people, it was to simply bash on the opposing party or because they couldn’t take it seriously at all.
“The thing that struck me the most about this election was the fact that 11,000 people voted for Harambe, the gorilla,” said UNR student, Amber Toothman. That is 11,000 wasted votes that should have been taken seriously and gone towards an actual candidate.
No matter what the outcome was, people used Twitter as a way to escape the possible reality. “Twitter was really entertaining last night and it was such a close election that it helped pass the time of getting the final results,” said UNR student, Peyton Lane.
According to The New York Times, Twitter’s Election Day activity was marred by the perception that it has become something of a cesspool for disinformation, intimidation and harassment. Memes of all types surfaced the Twitter feed, mocking each of the candidates that made it appear to people that they were taking it as some type of joke.
Other Twitter users found it concerning that people weren’t taking this election seriously and Twitter really showed that. “I thought it was really disturbing scrolling through Twitter and seeing that a lot of peers my age was treating this election as a joke because this is the future of our country and they should have been taking it more seriously then they were,” said Toothman.
Some people even found that the tweets and memes from Election night helped bring both parties together. “I thought it was really funny how both parties were tweeting funny things about each other because I think it helped to lighten the mood,” said UNR student, Jessie Woodstrom.
Social media is a very powerful tool and people often forget that what you tweet says a lot about you and your views. “I could definitely see how some people could have taken what was tweeted last night, the wrong way but we also have to remember that it is okay to have a little bit of humor,” said Lane.
Whether people tweeted about the election in a positive or in a joking way, Twitter was the hot spot for memes and jokes on election night. “Even though it may seem like all Twitter users didn’t take the election night seriously, I think they woke up this morning and realized that this is our reality and that there is nothing to joke about,” said UNR student, Danika Hickam.
