Joe Biden Eating Ice Cream

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About

Joe Biden Eating Ice Cream is an exploitable image macro featuring a viral photo of Joe Biden eating an ice cream cone. It is frequently used in the form of artistic recreation, as well as a reaction image in memes. The format and image gained popularity during the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election and continued seeing use throughout 2021.

Origin

Joe Biden has been known for over eight years as a fan of ice cream, and his interest in the dessert has been widely recognized by the media. On October 9th, 2014, Time^[1] posted an article entitled "These Photos of Joe Biden Eating an Ice Cream Cone Show That His Eternal Summer Shall Not Fade;" following Joe Biden’s campaign efforts in Portland, Oregon. It features a gallery focused on Biden’s ice-cream-eating habits. He reportedly stopped by the local Salt and Straw ice cream parlor where he purchased a two-scoop waffle cone containing "Chocolate Woodblock" and "Double-Fold Vanilla." Biden did not remove his sunglasses while eating his ice cream indoors, leading to a series of viral photos being captured, including the original inspiration for the template (seen below).

The first known appearance of the image in a meme was uploaded by u/BranchDavidian to the subreddit /r/neoliberal^[2] on March 4th, 2020. It received over 2,200 upvotes and 152 comments. The meme features the earliest known occurrence of this digital illustrated rendition of Biden, as well as the first known meme about the specific image.

Spread

The image began to spread to new platforms within several days. After its appearance on Reddit, an anonymous 4chan user uploaded this cropped meme to a /pol/ discussion about voting for Biden on March 11th, 2020, captioned "You Reap What You Sow,"^[3] which spread on its own as an individual meme and reappeared on numerous platforms.

The image uploaded to 4chan began to circulate quickly. It was edited into a political satire image that gained online notoriety. The original post has since been deleted, but this reupload to the Something Awful^[4] forums on November 6th, 2020, by Captain Kosmos shows the image in question.

Another popular meme featuring the drawing was uploaded to /r/PoliticalCompassMemes^[5] on July 27th, 2021, by u/franandwood. It received over 1,900 upvotes and 241 comments in roughly a month.