CNN's "Something Else" Chart

Submission 8,990

Part of a series on 2020 United States Presidential Election. [View Related Entries]

About

CNN's "Something Else" Chart, sometimes referred to by the hashtag #SomethingElse, is an image macro meme based on a screenshot from CNN's election night coverage, which featured a graphic that referred to unnamed ethnic groups as "Something Else." Many inferred this to mean indigenous voters and joked about the phrase alongside images of Native Americans and the CNN screenshot.

Origin

On November 3rd, 2020, CNN reporter David Chalian presented a graphic that reportedly broke down the voter turnout by race. In the fourth slot, below "Black" and above "Asian," the graphic reads, "Something else."

That day, Twitter ^[1] user @BeardedGenius tweeted a screenshot of the moment. They wrote, "Something else lol." The tweet received more than 3,700 likes and 800 retweets in less than two days (shown below).

Spread

The following morning, people continued to tweet about the graphic. Twitter^[2] user @justsheavassar tweeted, "I’m still thinking about the something else label and how someone really thought that was a good idea." The tweet received more than 535 likes and 100 retweets in less than 24 hours (shown below, left). Writer Rebecca Nagle tweeted,^[3] "Last night @CNN called Native voters “something else”. In an election largely driven by race, the media still fails to accurately cover voters of color. For Native Americans, we’re not even named." The tweet received more than 25,000 likes and 9,000 retweets in less than 24 hours (shown below, center).

That day, the hashtag #SomethingElse went viral on Twitter, cataloging tweets of outrage and jokes about the usage of the phrase. Twitter^[4] user _IllumiNatives tweeted, "CNNPolitics says we are “something else”. This is what “something else” looks like. Native voters with record turnouts in key states and volunteers helping get first-time voters and elders to the polls. #NativesVote @CNN #SomethingElse." The tweet received more than 3,400 likes and 1,000 retweets in less than 24 hours (shown below, right).

Later that day, some began memeing representations of Native Americans in U.S. culture and adding "Something Else" to the image's caption. Twitter^[5] user @KaitlynKayquop1 tweeted a series of these memes (shown below).

On November 5th, the website HITC^[6] published an article on the meme.