Mike Bloomberg's Sponsored Instagram Memes

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Part of a series on Meme 2020. [View Related Entries]

Overview

Mike Bloomberg's Sponsored Instagram Memes refers to a campaign by Democratic Presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg to have popular meme Instagram accounts post sponsored content ostensibly in support of the candidate. However, nearly all the sponsored posts take the form of fake text message conversations which make Bloomberg appear out of touch and cringeworthy. The memes led to an online debate about whether the accounts, many of which do not support Bloomberg, were morally justified in taking the money, even if the posts did not paint the former NYC mayor in a positive light.

Background

On February 7th, The Daily Beast^[22] reported that the Mike Bloomberg campaign was reaching out to influencers to "make him look cool." On February 12th, 2020, several high-profile meme accounts on Instagram, including FuckJerry, ^[1] Sonny5ideup, ^[2] shitheadsteve^[3] and others posted images sponsored by Democratic Presidential candidate and New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg (shown below). These posts were all fake text conversations showing Bloomberg approaching the accounts to do sponsored content and the accounts appearing to mock the proposal. All the posts included that they were sponsored by Bloomberg in the caption (examples shown below). The full list is:

@fuckjerry ^[1]
@fuckadvertisements^[6]
@WhitePeopleHumor^[7]
@TheFunnyIntrovert^[8]
@KaleSalad^[9]
@Sonny5ideUp^[2]
@Tank.Sinatra^[10]
@ShitheadSteve^[3]
@adam.the.creator^[11]
@moistbudda^[12]
@MrsDowJones^[13]
@TrashCanPaul^[14]
@cohmedy^[15]
@NeatDad^[16]
@FourTwenty^[17]
@GolfersDoingThings^[18]
@DrGrayFang^[19]
@MiddleClassFancy^[20]
@DoYouEvenLift^[21]
@grapejuiceboys^[30]
@gamersdoingthings^[31]
@NeatMom^[32]

The New York Times^[4] reported that the campaign was helmed by Meme 2020, which was founded by Mick Purzycki, chief executive of Jerry Media.

Developments

The influx of sponsored Bloomberg memes on Instagram divided internet users, some of whom supported the accounts taking the money, while others found it tasteless and immoral. The Fat Jew condemned the practice in an Instagram comment, calling Bloomberg a "colossal shitbag" and added that while he supported doing sponsored content for brands, this "Black Mirror dystopian simulation" was too much (shown below, left).^[5] Speaking to The New York Times, Instagram account @BigDadWhip said about the opportunity, “That would be kind of dope. I could say I helped a presidential candidate.” Twitter user @BrandyJensen^[23] posted a critical object labeling meme showing Bloomberg with Ghislaine Maxwell, gaining over 460 likes (shown below, right). Posts about the campaign gained over 5,300 points in /r/FellowKids^[24] Meanwhile, the Cheezburger^[29] site Memebase posted a collection of the meme posts.

Parodies

Other Instagram accounts began making parodies of the Bloomberg chats. Accounts including GravelInstitute,^[26] lushsux, ^[27] and inzane_johnny^[28] posted parodies, each gaining thousands of likes (shown below).

Facebook Branded Content Rules Update

At the time, some of these ads made use of Instagram’s official branded content tag, but others did not. Following the initial campaign, Facebook updated these rules and announced that sponsored memes used in political campaigns would be allowed on their platforms, but stated that they must comply with the company’s policy on properly disclosing such information. On February 14th, 2020, Axios media reporter Sara Fischer tweeted^[33] about the update (seen below), stating that the company would be reaching out to the meme accounts to address the issue. Since then, most of the accounts have retroactively updated their posts to add the sponsored content tag.

NEW: FB updating branded content rules in light of campaigns using memes. Says reaching out to the Bloomberg campaign+meme creators now that policy's updated, to be clear in posts who's responsible for content (ie-that Bloomberg campaign tagged in post). Story to come on @axios

— Sara Fischer (@sarafischer) February 14, 2020

Joe Biden Attack Ad

On February 19th, 2020, presidential candidate Joe Biden tweeted an attack ad that used the format from Bloomberg's campaign memes. The post received more than 900,000 views, 24,000 likes and 5,000 retweets in 24 hours (shown below).

Welcome to the debates, Mike. We have a lot to catch up on about Barack Obama’s record. pic.twitter.com/bMYPLYwnfQ

— Joe Biden (Text Join to 30330) (@JoeBiden) February 19, 2020

February 26th Campaign on Instagram

After the initial push on February 12th, primarily by accounts associated with Jerry Media, another campaign hit Instagram on the 26th. This time around, more accounts outside the Jerry Media circle took part in an advertisement push consisting of videos and other memes. One such example came from Worldstar Hip Hop, who posted a video of a man directing a model during a photoshoot that zooms in on his screen to reveal the message, “This is a Bloomberg ad” (seen below).

The full list of accounts from the second ad push:

@worldstar^[34]
@funnyhoodvidz^[35]
@bangerbuddy^[36]
@nugget^[37]
@wasted^[38]

As of February 27th, 2020, some of the ads from the previous day have since been deleted. New York Times reporter Taylor Lorenz explained in a tweet^[39] (shown below) that many of these accounts are paid a certain amount to run an ad for a specific amount of time and that afterwards, they delete them to keep their feeds clean.

Ppl DMing me asking why many meme accts have just deleted the ads: People pay meme accounts certain amt of $ to run the ad on their meme acct for a certain time. It helps keep the Memer’s feed clean of ads. Ppl pay a set amt to keep the ad up for 6hrs, 12hrs, 48hrs, etc. pic.twitter.com/pQNKhIbK7T

— Taylor Lorenz (@TaylorLorenz) February 27, 2020