Italian AOC

Submission 20,527

Part of a series on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. [View Related Entries]

About

Italian AOC is an image macro series of United States Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in mid-speech squinting her eyes and raising her hands. Online, people compared her expression in a manner associated with jokes and stereotypes about Italians speaking and gesticulating with their hands.

Origins

On October 23rd, 2019, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before congress regarding political advertisements his platform. During his questioning, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said, "You announced recently that the official policy of Facebook now allows politicians to pay to spread disinformation in 2020 elections and in the future, so I just want to know how far I can push this in the next year." While saying this, she raises her hands and squints her eyes (clip below).

On October 28th, Twitter ^[1] user @peepsalum shared a screenshot of the moment with the caption "Who knew @AOC was Italian?" The tweet received more than 8,300 likes and 1,100 retweets in 24 hours (shown below).

Spread

Following the post, others used the image to include jokes about stereotypes about Italians and Italian Americans. That day, Twitter^[2] user @fakemikemulloy tweeted, "*when the mozzarell is fresh*." The tweet received more than 59,000 likes and 8,400 retweets in 24 hours (shown below, left). Twitter^[3] user @ljstella tweeted, "When the moon hits your eye". Within 24 hours, the tweet received more than 11,000 likes and 1,800 retweets (shown below, center). Twitter^[4] user @Trilliam_Yeats tweeted, "When the gabagool is fresh." Within 24 hours, the tweet received more than 7,400 likes and 1,300 retweets (shown below, right).

That day, Twitter^[5] published a Moments page on the meme.

Several media outlets covered the meme, including Mashable, ^[6] InStyle,^[7] Someecards^[8] and more.