The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Conn. photographer ‘happy people are having fun’ over Sanders meme
NEWTOWN — The Bernie Sanders mitten meme is starting to look less like a random thing and more like something that was meant to be.
The inauguration day photo of a cross-armed Sanders in big brown mittens that launched a creative explosion of internet photoshopping has given the Newtown native who took the shot a platform to speak about his serious work, and it’s given the senator from Vermont a platform to talk about the serious work of rebuilding the economy.
More importantly, perhaps, the Sanders mitten meme has given Americans something that’s needed more than ever — something to laugh out loud about.
“With so many serious topics we’re immersed in, it’s important to be able to look at the lighter side of life and laugh,” says JC Barone, a professor of communication and media arts at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury. “Looking around at what’s going on with the economy and the pandemic and politics, we need to laugh.”
Brendan Smialowski, the
Newtown High School graduate and Agence France-Presse photographer who took the Sanders photo, agrees about the need to laugh, even if the meme frenzy that landed him interviews with Rolling Stone and Esquire is not the kind of attention any photojournalist wants.
“It’s totally been taken out of
the context of journalism,” said Smialowski, 40, who has covered four presidents and two wars. “But I’m happy people are having fun with the image.”
Fun doesn’t do the meme justice in some cases. The image of Sanders trying to keep warm on a folding chair at the Capitol has been superimposed everywhere from a Bob Ross painting to The Last Supper.
Sanders himself, who appears slightly gruff in the photo, showed that he too can go with the flow.
The chairman of the powerful Senate Budget Committee acquired Smialowski’s
photo from Getty Images and put it on a black sweatshirt. The “Chairman Sanders Crewneck,” sold out so quickly at $45 that orders may take as long as two months to process, according to his campaign store.
Over the weekend, Sanders told a Sunday cable news host that having fun can also be meaningful.
“[A]ll the money raised, which I expect will be a couple million dollars, will be going to programs like Meals on Wheels that feed lowincome senior citizens,” Sanders told CNN. “(The meme) turns out actually to be a good thing and not only a fun thing.”