What liberals are pushing back against, then, is seeing all of these things cobbled together and demonized. “This moment is important, I think, for people to call out,” Phillips says. “You’ve got this strange minoritarianism, this obsession with children and genitals and drag queens and librarians and all of this stuff where you’re like, ‘What is wrong with you guys?’”
Backlash, it’s worth noting, is already afoot. Last weekend, onetime Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy took to X to call the “they’re weird” argument “dumb and juvenile,” adding, “this is a presidential election, not a high school prom queen contest.”
Derek Guy, aka X’s Menswear Guy, responded to Ramaswamy’s post with an image of the former candidate and the caption “big ass shoes,” zooming in on what looked like ill-fitting footwear. It was an attempt to call out Ramaswamy’s own weirdness, but two days later Guy posted a new message to X that “the discourse around ‘weird’ strikes me as not great.”
Calling anyone “weird” implies that someone else is “normal” or deviant, and that has consequences. “That is how trans people get attacked, that is how women who don’t have children get attacked,” Phillips says. Trump and his supporters aren’t going to turn around and rethink their actions, and ultimately “weirdness” could end up being “weaponized in ways that then makes me nervous, even though I also think that not calling attention to the weirdness is dangerous,” she adds.
“Weird as a framing works really well as a meme,” Phillips says, “but it doesn’t work really well as an outreach strategy.”
Katiyar says it will ultimately come down to whether liberals, and the Harris campaign specifically, can back up the memes with something else. “Young voters really do care about social issues, about housing prices, the economy, very substantive issues,” she says. “So I do see [“weird”] losing efficacy if they don’t continue to shift policy to create a difference.” That, to use last week’s buzzword, would be so brat.
Loose Threads
Italian Olympic gymnast Giorgia Villa is a parmesan influencer. This is perfect; I have no notes. Please do check out the photos of her posing with giant wheels of cheese. (Yes, most of these threads are going to be about the Paris Olympics. Sorry not sorry.)
Sure, you’ve heard of walking on water, but have you heard of standing on the air above it? Brazilian surfer Gabriel Medina has, and this photo of him doing just that has gone incredibly viral.
South Korean sharpshooter Kim Ye-ji is cooler than you. Everyone thinks so.
Finally, we’d like to leave you with this: A video of gold-medal Olympic gymnasts Simone Biles and Jordan Chiles dancing with Snoop Dogg.
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