Big Water

Submission 16,486

Part of a series on Donald Trump. [View Related Entries]

About

Big Water refers to a popular catchphrase based on a speech made my United States President Donald Trump while explaining the difficulties with sending aide to Puerto Rico, following Hurricane Maria.

Origin

On September 29th, 2017, President Trump delivered a speech at the National Association of Manufacturers, where he discussed the government's relief efforts towards Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria.^[1] During the speech, he said:

"All of appropriate departments of our government, from Homeland Security to Defense, are engaged fully in the disaster, and the response and recovery effort probably has never been seen for something like this. This is an island. Surrounded by water. Big water. Ocean water."

Spread

Shortly after the president made the comments, people online began posting jokes and image macros, using the phrase "big water, ocean water" as a caption. That day, New York Times writer Dave Itzkoff tweet^[1] a picture of the water level from _ Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island_ and the caption "This is an island. Surrounded by water. Big water, ocean water." Within three days, the post (shown below, left) received more than "This is an island. Surrounded by water. Big water, ocean water."

Additionally, Twitter ^[2] user @alplicable posted a picture from the film Moana with the quote (shown below, center), garnering more than 580 retweets and 2,500 likes in three days. Twitter^[3] user @ithrow88 posted a picture of a little girl on a boat with the quote "'Daddy what is that? Me: 'that's big water, ocean water.'" The post (shown below, right) received more than 2,100 retweets and 9,700 likes in three days.

That day, Twitter user^[4] @petercgroff posted a GIF of the Roll Safe meme and the caption "POTUS just shared that an island is surrounded by water and an ocean is big water – thank you sir! Got it!" Within three days, the post (shown below) received more than 1,900 retweets and 6,300 likes.

That day, Twitter^[5] posted a Moments page about the quote and the response to the president's speech. Several media outlets covered Trump's comments, including People,^[9] Esquire,^[10] Salon,^[11] Business Insider^[12] and more.

Throughout the weekend, the speech appeared on several subreddits, including /r/EnoughTrumpSpam^[6] (<10,000 points) and /r/politics^[7]^[8] (<7,000 points).