FWIW: The first inauguration over Zoom

The official White House social accounts have been handed over.

Extraordinary public health and security circumstances surrounding the Inauguration of President Joe Biden forced planners to remake the seminal event into something anyone could experience on practically any platform -- cable TV, YouTube, Twitch, Amazon Prime Video, and even Microsoft Bing.

Perhaps it’s for that reason that the most digitally produced inauguration in history was also the most meme-able, from Bernie Sanders’ iconic one coat to Meena Harris’ husband’s Dior Nike sneakers. In this week’s FWIW, in lieu of digital ad spending data that is still unavailable to the public, we’re going to talk about some of the ways in which the virtual aspects of Wednesday’s events went beyond just streaming it on the platforms, creating an experience that played out across Americans’ social media feeds.

A virtual inauguration

This was the first inauguration in history that relied so heavily on the internet and streaming content production to reach its audience, and they raised the bar for themselves by bringing on producers from the 2020 DNC for the primetime special. So how did they do?

The absolute bare minimum the Inaugural producers could have done to bring this event online would have been to just stream the week’s events on YouTube and call it a day. And that they did, but they also cemented Twitch’s place as a prominent political streaming platform (where Donald Trump is permabanned) by making this inauguration the first to have an official presence on the platform. Ultimately, the Twitch stream of Biden’s inauguration got over 1 million views over its seven-hour run.

It also looks like they also tried to proactively reach audiences that might not have otherwise tuned in. For example, they created a Snapchat AR selfie filter (where Trump is also permabanned) that included a message that they had Mr. President record specifically for the platform. 👏👏👏

The platform transition📱

Trump himself may have been temporarily or permanently banned from just about every major online platform, but his institutional online presence as President remained untouched. Handles like @POTUS, @VP, and @WhiteHouse all had to transfer ownership to the Biden administration as close to 12 noon as the platforms could manage. To really put in context just how new this whole issue is, this is only the second time that Twitter had to transfer these accounts. 🤯

This go-round, though, they did it a little differently. While the Biden administration did inherit Trump’s official audiences on Facebook and Instagram, they had to start from scratch on Twitter, a favor that the platform granted Trump during his transition in 2017. While Biden’s transition team wasn’t too pleased with this decision, followers of Trump’s @WhiteHouse got a push notification to follow the new and improved @WhiteHouse, and Twitter also embedded a follow button right in the TL.

The Biden administration also inherited the vast web of federal .gov websites, which the Trump administration radically remade from publicly funded online resources into propaganda platforms for the boss. It looks like whitehouse.gov has gotten the most dramatic facelift (with one of the biggest changes being its improved accessibility), but all websites were transferred to new ownership almost seamlessly.

First of all, the design on the new sites are very crisp and clean, and they also brought back whitehouse.gov/es, the dedicated Spanish-language version of the site that the Trump administration did away with early on. And if curious web designers sought to poke around the site’s source code, they’re greeted with a clever recruitment easter egg:

Meme King Bernie Sanders 🧤

Wednesday was ostensibly Joe Biden’s day, but when Bernie Sanders walked onto the inauguration stage in what appears to be his only coat and fair trade mittens given to him as a gift by a constituent and sat in his chair, all bets were off. The first meme of the Biden era was born and exploded everywhere. Everywhere. Even the Finnish tax office.

But with tens of millions of Americans tuned into a primarily digital event, Sanders was hardly the only meme that came out of it. Lady Gaga’s enormous dove pin almost immediately reminded viewers of The Hunger Games’ iconic gold mocking jay pin, and she also got praise from former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who herself is notorious for her own array of extravagant pins.

And while poet laureate Amanda Gorman’s recital wasn’t in itself memeable, she was clearly a huge hit online: she gained nearly a million followers in the 24 hours after she spoke at the inauguration, in part thanks to shout-outs from Obama, Oprah, Hillary Clinton, Malala, and a coterie of her fellow luminaries with their own huge followings.

Misinformation will persist 🤥

Trump is all but exiled from the internet, and some of his QAnon-loving followers are losing their minds over the fact that Biden was sworn in without some deus ex machina intervention, but the conditions that enabled their ascendance in the first place remain virtually unchanged. Trust in Media is at a record low. Fox News, which happily peddled the Big Lie and has actually doubled down on their propaganda arm, isn’t going away any time soon. Facebook continued funneling its users to radicalizing groups well into December.

And even though one of the most prominent members of the delusion has himself called for his followers to move on, we fully expect the Seditionist Caucus in Congress will continue to have a significant constituency in this country. One America News didn’t broadcast Biden’s inauguration, and Rush Limbaugh is still in denial. Maybe some supporters may have a healing awakening now that the delusion that Trump would somehow remain in power has evaporated -- but don’t count on it.

You’re invited 💻

That’s it for this week, but before you go, we wanted to extend an invite to ACRONYM’s 2020 virtual election debrief next Thursday, January 28th. We’ll be sharing our team’s playbook, our biggest learnings from the cycle, where we think Democrats + progressives should go from here. Don’t miss out - Register for the event here to get access to the agenda, browse sessions, and we’ll send you a final reminder next week.