If you weren’t living under a rock this past week, I’m sure you were bombarded with quite a few memes surrounding the Presidential candidates. They have been compared to Harry Potter characters, “The Office” scenes, “Spongebob”, and they've even been photographed with Snapchat filters.
The first Presidential debate on September 26, 2016, heightened and encouraged these memes, no doubt. While I did find quite a few of them hilarious, I began to wonder if anyone has stopped to think that we actually probably shouldn’t be laughing at this.
When I think about previous funny viral topics, it seems as though they went viral because they were not only funny, but they represented an actual situation that was a joke as well (cue Steve Harvey announcing the wrong Miss Universe).
While these Presidential memes may appear hilarious at first, they are reflecting a real issue in our society, which is something that I frankly don’t think we should be laughing at. Why are we mocking and cyber bullying two people who have the opportunity to become the next President of the United States?
To make matters worse, not only are we as a society doing it, but the candidates themselves are participating in the cyber bullying as well. Donald Trump consistently tweets and calls Hillary Clinton “crooked Hillary” and Hillary responds in her own way by disputing Trump’s actions.
Currently, I see more tweets mocking the candidates than supporting them. I read more posts about their health, age, and clothing than about their actual policies and beliefs. You can choose to continue to make fun of them and not take either seriously, but like it or not, one of them is on track to become our next President.
Instead of favoriting a joke tweet about the two candidates, visit an accurate news source and get informed to make an educated vote this November. Please don’t let social media influence your opinion on such a serious issue. An educated vote today means much more than a favorite or retweet on Twitter, and that is, unfortunately, something my generation can’t seem to fully grasp.
