Verbally Described Meme #79: Britney Spears Electoral Sweep (Deep Dive)
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A meme of the American electoral college map showing the states, their votes, and the overall count towards a winning value of 270. Every state is shown to be pink, the text towards the top reads Spears 538 (the total number of electoral college votes in the United States) an image of Britney Spears from a 1998 photoshoot and text that states "It's Britney bitch!" in the iconic Barbie font. The phrase is one of the most iconic phrases ever, and especially for Britney. It originated from the 2007 single Gimme More. This meme is one of many electoral college map parodies that have been widely spread every major US presidential election going back to the 2004 election of George W Bush and John Kerry. These memes were not largely popular until the 2016 presidential contest between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, where news media started to include interactive maps in their reporting which allowed for specific scenarios to be seen. The original Britney meme is more reminiscent of massive sweeps for specific candidates like the often memed, Jeb and others. These are a variant of the massively popular "What the electoral college map would look like if only-blank voted." There are many different variants of this meme, often singling out a specific location or state and some identifying factor. Or they are directed in a completely non-political manner to steer the conversation away from political divide. Or they comment on the confusing nature of the United States electoral process and the feelings of the world on the matter. These memes were popularized by postings by American statistician Nate Silver of the website Five Thirty Eight .com. The massive inaccuracy of polling and predictions surrounding elections with Donald Trump has led to even larger spread of memes as the uncertainty is striking. These memes often have crossover elements into other meme formats and serve to symbolize the collective emotion of the country in uncertainty. Given the conditions surrounding 2020 and burnout many memes are intentionally designed as a respite from a very stressful year. This year specifically there has been a massive showing of memes given the lengthy process of tallying the votes largely due to vote by mail ballots, coronavirus restrictions, and state laws dictating that early voting and mail in ballots can only be counted after election day and after all in person ballots are counted for that specific state.
In the three days following the election there still has not been a winner announced due to the function of the electoral college despite the popular vote having Joe Biden ahead by millions of votes. Due to the irregularity of the vote count, the trends are not linear as to who has had a lead. Mail in ballots largely have swung towards Joe Biden while Trump had urged his voters to not mail in their votes and show up in person the day of the election. The electoral college's validity is up for debate now given that in several elections the popular vote has been lost while the presidency has been won due to several swing states. This layers with it's origins in minority voter suppression, subverting the one voice one vote axiom of democracy by giving more voting power to residents in less populous states, and the rural and urban split of conservative and liberal voting trends, respectively. The concept of Gerrymandering, where voting blocs are split to favor the minority a la the electoral college is often memed as well, due to the absurd shape of some districts including the notable Illinois 4th congressional district. In the last few days eyes have turned to the states of Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Nevada as deciding states in the 2020 presidential election, and the memes have followed. In Arizona there's the specter of the late ex-presidential candidate and vocal Trump critic John McCain, who was massively popular in the state. Largely these states started out with a leaning towards Trump but as mail in voting has been turning in they have now swung blue. Further ratcheting up uncertainty, and meme output.