Joe Biden's Virtual Campaign Rally for Tampa, Florida

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

Overview

Joe Biden's Virtual Campaign Rally for Tampa, Florida occurred on May 7th, 2020. The rally for Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive presidential nominee, took place online due to social-distancing limitations in place because of the coronavirus outbreak. Many online mocked the campaign rally for technical difficulties with the live stream.

Background

On May 7th, 2020, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden held a campaign rally for people in Tampa, Florida. That day, the YouTube 10 Tampa Bay shared the streamed the rally.

Developments

Online Reaction

During the live-stream, Biden's face appeared pixelated due to issues with the stream. Many online meme'd the glitches in a variety of formats. For example, Twitter ^[1] user @BetaODork tweeted the image in conjunction with an image of Biden lifting a weight. They captioned the image, "First day of quarantine vs How I'm feeling today." The tweet received more than 5,900 likes and 565 retweets in less than one week (shown below, left). Twitter^[2] user @disco_socialist shared an edited version of the glitched image with the subtitle 895 likes and 100 retweets in less than one week (shown below, right).

On May 9th, 2020, Redditor ^[4] lhubbard0 shared the video on the /r/PresidentialRaceMemes. The post received more than 100 points (96% upvoted) in less than two days.

Mason Verger Parodies

Many compared Biden's appearance to Mason Verger from the 2001 Hannibal Lecter film Hannibal. Twitter^[3] user @Katie_Kat405 shared the image of Biden's face glitching next to an image of Verger. They captioned the image, "Cannot unsee this." The post received more than 7,300 likes and 575 retweets in less than one week (shown below).

Media Coverage

Various news and media outlets commented on the rally, including Deadline,^[5] Fox News, ^[6] the Washington Post,^[7] The Daily Dot ^[8] and more.

On May 8th, 2020, Tucker Carlson aired a segment on the technical difficulties. That day, the clip appeared on the Instagram @tuckercarlsontonight account. The post received more than 147,000 views and 17,000 likes in less than one week (shown below).