About

Joan the Silencer is a photoshop meme that utilizes a photo of Modesto, California Republican delegate Joan Clendenin as she appears to be using paper in an attempt to keep Texas delegate and Ron Paul supporter Jeremy Blosser from speaking during the 2012 Republican National Convention.

Origin

The photo of Joan Clendenin and Jeremy Blosser was taken in August 2012 during the Republican National Convention. According to Clendenin, Ron Paul supporters standing near her assigned seat began shouting "point of order" after being upset by a ruling on that day's state roll call. For fifteen minutes, she was unable to hear or see any of the speeches.^[1] Nearing the end of Paul's supporter's objections, she posed for the photograph as Jeremy Blosser stood in front of a microphone that was turned off.^[2]

Spread

The photo was initially shared on several small political blogs in September 2012 including Preserving Freedom^[3], the Republican Coalition of Denton County^[4] and Libertarian Jake.^[5] On November 7th, the photo was submitted to the Ron Paul subreddit^[6], where it earned 87 upvotes and 76 points overall. The next day , it was reposted to Daily Paul^[7] where a commenter shared an exploitable cut out of Clendenin, encouraging others to photoshop it into other images. On the 9th, a Facebook fan page^[8] was started to curate these photoshopped images, accruing 1971 likes in 4 days. Four days later, the photoshop meme was featured on the Daily Dot.^[9]

Notable Examples

Search Interest

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External References