"People Want To Feel Like They're Part Of A Movement": These Gen Z Political Organizers Think Memes Can Change The Country

If you're extremely online (like me) and/or young (unlike me, according to Gen Z), you've probably noticed the recent spike in meme-sharing from politicians attempting to court young voters. But can memes ACTUALLY win elections? According to the left-wing group OrganizerMemes, the answer is a resounding "yes."

OrganizerMemes is a Twitter account run by a collective of anonymous Gen Z and millennial-cusp political organizers. Created in May 2020 when political campaigns became remote during COVID, OrganizerMemes became a way for political organizers to remain social and interact with staffers on campaigns across the country.

Leading up to the 2020 general election, OrganizerMemes's mission statement expanded to more explicitly support progressive and leftist candidates.

With a network of contacts in hundreds of progressive campaigns and organizations around the country, OrganizerMemes is the preeminent authority on leftist "memetic warfare."

In the past two years, the group has given meme trainings to the College Democrats national conference and state chapters across the US, Eliza Orlins for Manhattan DA, Ohio Young Democrats, and the Harvard College Democrats — just to name a few.

And as someone who was on my university's College Democrats e-board and worked in politics for a decade, I love seeing a political group that acknowledges how Gen Z and younger millennials engage in politics differently than older generations — with tweets, shitposting, and memes.

OrganizerMemes told BuzzFeed that meme warfare is long overdue. "Memes really are making a difference in campaign performance because they're in constant contact with the public and help create networks. They take advantage of the cooperative nature of the internet.”

“By making a meme and sharing it on an account you run, you're saying, ‘I think this is cool — let me show this to the most important people in my life.’”

Making memes is super quick, easy, and cheap — they can also spread like wildfire, which makes them a potentially powerful organizing tool. That's why they’re often associated with progressive populists like Bernie Sanders, Ed Markey, and John Fetterman.

A perfect example of populist meme-making is John Fetterman's recently launched Fettermemes.com. The campaign created the site so supporters could "get in on the meme-ing fun and provide a way for them to creatively point out [Dr. Mehmet] Oz’s hypocrisy and wild out-of-touch beliefs."

OrganizerMemes told BuzzFeed that Fettermemes.com uses memes the way they're intended: “Memes are a way for a campaign to build its brand, engage in rapid response, and change the narrative."

"The best memes are community-driven, not personality-driven.”

“People want to feel like they’re part of a movement. They don’t just want to be known as 'Organizer 75' or 'Volunteer 300,' and memes bring in all these people who want to help.”

According to OrganizerMemes, one of the main benefits of memes is the potential for exponential growth that almost every other form of political outreach lacks. "You can make a meme in a minute, and suddenly it’s everywhere. When is the last time a platform like BuzzFeed wrote an article about someone’s really creative lawn sign?”

“The old guard in Democratic politics has an issue with not bringing young people to the table. They’re hesitant to invest in groundbreaking digital organizing strategies that are social media- and meme-heavy because it’s new and unproven.”

“Campaigns have to have a multi-pronged approach to meet people where they’re at."

"The majority of people who vote may not be memers or meme-lovers, BUT if Democrats want to win they WILL need the youth vote.”

OrganizerMemes told BuzzFeed, “Most people are only engaged in politics for three days each year at the most, but memes have the potential to keep them engaged and informed on a daily basis."

They concluded, "Social media is the printing press of our age, and its use in campaigns will only grow over time.”

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