Gleeks Candidate Godfrey G. Golden

Submission 718

Part of a series on 2024 United States Presidential Election. [View Related Entries]

About

Gleeks Candidate Godfrey G. Golden, also known as Joe Glubbin or Green Joe Biden, refers to an imaginary third-party candidate in the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election who's depicted as a photoshopped version of President Joe Biden with a green tie, said to be the leading candidate for the Gleeks party (unaffiliated with the term "gleek" to describe fans of the TV show Glee). The character originally surfaced after the June 2024 Presidential Debate between President Biden and former President Donald Trump. A three-panel split-screen showing Trump, Biden and the green Gleeks candidate onstage went viral on Reddit and Twitter / X in the following days. The original creator said that the meme came to them in a dream. Going into the latter half of 2024, the Gleeks candidate was named "Godfrey G. Golden" by Redditors and X users, while "Joe Glubbin" was his name for meme creators on TikTok.

Origin

On June 28th, 2024, Redditor^[1] Shawakamigo posted to the subreddit /r/thomastheplankengine, writing, "Had a dream after the debate that there was a third party called the 'gleeks.'" The image showed former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden during the June 2024 Presidential Debate with a third candidate onscreen who was pictured as a photoshopped version of Biden with a green tie and grey suit. The post received over 6,200 upvotes in five months (shown below).

Spread

In the following days, Redditor Shawakamigo's June 28th, 2024, image was reposted to other subreddits as it began to spread on the platform.^[2]^[3]

On July 18th, 2024, X^[4] user @334_sandi tweeted the image, joking about how the third candidate was like the third Mario Brother, gaining over 78,000 likes in four months (shown below).

Later on July 18th, X^[5] user @geomaniac_ quote retweeted the abovementioned post, amassing over 108,000 likes in four months (shown below).

On September 11th, 2024, X^[6] user @DRAXOMOSPHERE resurfaced the meme, captioning the original image with the question, "What ever happened to this guy?" Over two months, the tweet gained over 93,000 likes (shown below).

On October 1st, TikToker^[7] @cantwiperight posted a video in which they wrote, "Definitely voting for joe glubbin this election! #JoeGlubbin2024." In a month, the TikTok amassed over 309,500 plays and 71,800 likes (shown below).

Closer to Election Day in the U.S., X^[8] user @Trey_Explainer tweeted on November 5th, 2024, "We’ll have to see what happens today…" captioning a fake Wikipedia article about the Presidential Election that showed the primary candidates as Donald Trump and Godfrey G. Golden, gaining over 11,000 likes in less than 24 hours (shown below).

The fake Wikipedia article was originally posted by Redditor^[9] Ouedouardo to /r/AlternateHistoryMemes on July 22nd, where it received over 550 upvotes in four months.