About

Washington Post Slogan Parodies refer to photoshopped images making fun of The Washington Post's slogan, "Democracy Dies in Darkness," which was implemented in February of 2017.

Origin

On February 21st, 2017, The Washington Post changed their slogan on the website to read "Democracy Dies in Darkness."^[1] The quote is meant to demonstrate to readers that The Washington Post will provide strong journalistic coverage of politics. Readers speculated that it is aimed at the Donald Trump administration, which has been very combative with the press, particularly with media outlets that he believes cover him unfavorably, but The Washington Post's Jeff Bezos denies the claim.

Spread

Immediately after the slogan was rolled out, members of Twitter took to mocking its particularly foreboding tone by photoshopping various other dark-sounding slogans beneath the Washington Post logo. For example, one of the earliest jokes by @emerylord^[2] changed the slogan to "Nice try, withered apricot."

Slate^[3] published an article, "15 Metal Albums Whose Titles Are Less Dark Than the Washington Post’s New Motto," the following day. Bustle^[4] also posted an article rounding up reactions to and photoshops of the new slogan that day. It was also riffed on by Stephen Colbert on his show, according to a Washington Post^[5] explainer of the slogan.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References