The best memes and social media reactions from Election Day 2020
- On Election Day 2020, people across the United States voted to determine the nation's next president, congressional representatives, and state and local leaders.
- On social media, people reacted in real-time to the election, sharing their reactions and participating in meme trends about the event.
- From ironic predictive maps to viral one-liners from voters, here are the best memes and reactions from Election Day 2020.
On Election Day — November 3, 2020, people took to social media to vent, share news about the election, and publicly stress about its results. In particular, many people online were focused on the presidential race between Republican incumbent Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
That chatter manifested in many ways, ranging from memes about Britney Spears winning all 50 states in a pink wave to TikTok videos using the siren sound from the Purge horror movie franchise. With the race coming down to a number of states by Wednesday morning and no clear result just yet, the discourse has continued online, with people continuing to express their thoughts and frustrations.
From implausible election maps to viral one-liners from voters leaving the polls, here are the best memes and reactions from Election Day that were posted on social media.
Election map predictions
With election maps soon to be filled in as polls closed and results started to roll in, people online were making their own maps predicting the potential outcome of the election based on a variety of unrelated factors. Others remade the map imagining a full sweep from candidates other than Trump or Biden.
Voting in 2016 versus voting in 2020
As BuzzFeed News reported, people were making memes expressing their feelings of voting in 2016, when the election was between Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, to 2020's election. The 2020 images, in many cases, were significantly more haggard, chaotic, or otherwise frazzled compared to 2016.
'28yr-old Miamian Alex Garcia'
Miami Herald reporter Lautaro Grinspan tweeted an exchange that he'd had with a voter in Miami, Florida named Alex Garcia that went viral.
Grinspan tweeted that Garcia had said that he intended to vote for Trump but changed his mind at the voting booth, choosing to vote for Biden so that the cultural landscape would potentially return to a less-polarized time. "I just want my Instagram to be about me again, and how good I look," Garcia reportedly said.
The tweet has racked up approximately 37,500 likes in less than 24 hours.
Garcia told BuzzFeed News that the reality of his decision was a bit more complicated than the tweet suggested, saying that the fact that he's going to soon be a father and the partisanship and toxicity he'd seen on Instagram over the course of the past four years played into his decision as well.
Still, his quote resonated with people on Twitter.
People posted memes about the stress of the evening, leading into the next morning
On Twitter, many were expressing their stress about election night, with reactions spilling into the next morning as votes continued to be counted across the nation. Others expressed how their desire to stay off of social media conflicted with their desire to be online all night.
On TikTok, people reacted by sharing their feelings and posting funny videos
TikTok creators shared their reactions on the app as the night progressed, with many also posting memes that played into TikTok trends like Aly & AJ's "Potential Breakup Song."
The purge siren also became a meme on the app, as Mel Magazine reported. TikTokers used the sound — a siren taken from the Purge franchise of horror movies that marks a 12-hour period in which all crime is legal — while discussing election night feelings or showing businesses preparing for potential unrest.
As results continue to roll in, stay up to date with Business Insider's live coverage of the election.
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