Life of Julia Parodies
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Part of a series on 2012 United States Presidential Election. [View Related Entries]
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About
Life of Julia Parodies are spoof images based on the "Life of Julia" campaign, a slideshow published by Barack Obama's reelection campaign that illustrated the life of a faceless woman. The original video, which juxtaposed Julia’s life under Obama’s presidency against what it would be like under the Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, soon became a target of online parodies critiquing the slideshow’s one-sided logic.
Origin
On May 3rd, 2012, the Obama re-election campaign team released a slideshow titled "The Life of Julia"[1], which went through the life of a faceless female character with the government providing assistance for her at every point in her life. The slideshow was immediately criticized by political media outlets including news aggregator Breitbart[2], who was the first to parody the page by providing an alternative life story of a real person named Julia.
Spread
On May 3rd, 2012, Twitter users also began critiquing the slideshow with the hashtag #Julia.[3] Politico[4], the Guardian[11], the HIll[14] and Jezebel[15] quickly gathered the best tweets from this feed and published them on the same day. Additionally, a handful of image parodies popped up with TheLifeOfJulia.com[5] creating a similar interactive slideshow to show an alternative view of her life under Obama's presidency. Politics-focused personal blog Sooper Mexican[6] published a series of photoshopped versions the original slides, painting the Mitt Romney world as more ideal.
Also on the day, the release of the slideshow was covered by political news media sites including the Atlantic[7], National Review Online[8], the Huffington Post[9][10], the Washington Post[12] and Breitbart[13], who called it the “Dads are Unnecessary, Single Women are Helpless” campaign. The next day, the Foundry at Heritage.org published A Better Life for Julia[17], fact-checking the original slideshow's story. It was also covered on CBS News[16] and the MSNBC Morning Show that day.
In the following days, the site and its parodies was discussed on the Daily Beast[18], who stated that despite the criticism, the site had already racked up over 37,000 likes on Facebook, and parodied again on Oregon Live.[19]
Notable Examples
Search Interest
External References
[1] Barack Obama – The Life of Julia
[2] Breitbart – The Life of a Real Julia: My Wife
[3] Twitter – Search results for #Julia
[4] Politico – Conservatives mock Obama's 'Julia'
[6] SooperMexican – The Life of Julia Under Obama and Mitt
[7] The Atlantic – Obama's 'Life of Julia' Was Made to Be Mocked
[8] National Review Online – ‘Julia’
[9] Huffington Post – Life Of Julia: Welcome To The Trollgaze Campaign
[10] Huffington Post – Life Of Julia, Obama Campaign's New Online Tool, Touts Pro-Women Policies
[11] the Guardian – The half-life of Julia on Twitter
[12] Washington Post – ‘The life of Julia’ and the new frontiers of presidential politics
[13] Breitbart – OBAMA CAMPAIGN: WOMEN ARE HELPLESS
[14] the Hill – Obama 'Julia' web tool courting women draws GOP scorn on Twitter
[15] Jezebel – Conservative Twitter Shitstorm Erupts Over Obama Web Graphic Named Julia
[16] CBS News – Twitter and "The Life of Julia"
[17] The Foundry – A Better Life For Julia
[18] The Daily Beast – Republicans Laugh, But Women Relate to 'The Life of Julia'
[19] Oregon Live – Life Of Julia (corrected)
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