Miku Binder Thomas Jefferson

About

Miku Binder Thomas Jefferson, also known as Weeaboo Drug Dealer Thomas Jefferson, refers to an infamous piece of fan art depicting the United States founding father and former president Thomas Jefferson as a transgender former drug dealer who likes anime. In the illustration, he is depicted wearing a breast binder, a piece of clothing used by some trans men and non-binary people, printed with the face of Hatsune Miku. The artwork was part of a series of alternate universe (AU) depictions of founding fathers drawn by Tumblr user umbronydraws, who was depicting figures such as Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton and John Laurens as queer college students, inspired in part by Hamilton. The art was harshly criticized and later widely parodied after the artist expressed their support of police during the George Floyd Protests. Parodies often depict other historical and modern political figures in a similar style, along with a list of alternate universe characteristics.

Origin

On September 11th, 2017, Tumblr user @ask-crammaster-ham, an alternate account for artist umbronydraws that posted AU depictions of founding fathers as queer college students, posted their version of Thomas Jefferson with the backstory that Jefferson was a trans male obsessed with anime and a former drug dealer^[1] (shown below).

Spread

The artwork and the blog was heavily criticized after it was posted, leading to its deletion after only two weeks.^[1] umbronydraws^[2] claimed the backlash was why no artists of color could post on Tumblr, along with negative reactions people shared on Instagram (shown below). Over the following several years, the post would be remembered in several online communities such as Reddit^[3] and Twitter^[6] as an example of cringeworthy fan art and Tumblr culture. On January 11th, 2020, Twitter user Tiktaalekroseae^[4] posted the full set, leading to reposts of some of the parody images made of the original; user @Ferrek2^[5] posted an example that gained over 100 retweets and 1,200 likes (shown below, right).

In June of 2020, umbronydraws criticized the ACAB movement on Twitter. This led to a surge of people remembering his creation and creating new parodies of the artwork, this time centering around modern political figures. For example, on August 22nd, 2020 Tumblr user dooldler^[7] posted a parody featuring Ben Shapiro, gaining over 600 notes (shown below, left). On October 4th, Twitter user k0rdon^[8] made an example with Donald Trump, gaining over 13,000 retweets and 25,000 likes (shown below, right).

An extended analysis of the drama and backlash surrounding the art was compiled by the Fanlore Wiki.^[1]

Aaron Burr Wikipedia Vandalism

On March 14th, 2021, the Wikipedia page for Aaron Burr was vandalized with numerous references to the meme.^[9] This caused "Aaron Burr" to trend on Twitter as people noticed the Wikipedia summary for Aaron Burr included a line about Burr giving Jefferson his "first Miku binder."

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References