The rise and fall of “Dark Brandon,” and a memes’ reenergizing of a dull administration

Dark Brandon, as memed across the internet. Source: Emily Stellakis '24

For those who have spent any significant time online—particularly on the trending page of Twitter or the Instagram Explore page where even the most resilient memes eventually go to die— I’m sure you’ve seen him: our septuagenarian president distorted with lasers for eyes, portrayed against a dramatic underworld backdrop of flames, skulls and super villain-esque imagery. 

He’s accompanied by bold captions touting his triumph over malarkey or his vanquishing of political foes, usually garnished with Bidenisms like “folks,” “kiddo” and “Jack.” It’s “Dark Brandon,” a byproduct of the depths of far-right internet forums and the MAGA mainstream that was recently reclaimed by the Democratic establishment. Makes sense, right?

Dark Brandon rose to prominence this summer alongside the Biden administration’s slow trickling of PR wins, with the U.S. assassination of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, a slight drop in gas prices, positive employment numbers, the passage of landmark gun reforms and the Inflation Reduction Act all serving to fuel the notoriety of the president’s online alter ego. With every success, Dark Brandon — according to Twitter users — had struck again.

While it took the passage of the Democrats’ big-ticket climate change, health care and tax policy bill — a $700 billion, slimmed-down version of the Build Back Better bill — to elevate Dark Brandon from the depths of Extremely Online political Twitter into the Democratic mainstream, he’s been around for a while. The origins of Dark Bradon are complex, though the meme largely stems from the ubiquitous MAGA rallying cry “Let’s go, Brandon,” the movement’s coded shorthand to castigate the president. When an NBC journalist misreported a crowd chant of “F*** Joe Biden” as “Let’s go, Brandon” at a NASCAR race in October 2021, a Trumpist slogan was born; the reporter’s likely innocent mix-up sparked the explosion of a conservative dog whistle that has been echoed on the House floor and plastered onto a hodgepodge of merchandise (think: bumper stickers, foam hands, the like).

Despite myriad unsuccessful attempts in 2021 by liberals to reclaim the phrase for themselves — like by trying to subvert the viral #LetsGoBrandon hashtag with #ThankYouBrandon — the Brandon discourse persisted, much to the chagrin of online Democrats. The slogan then meshed with the “Dark MAGA” lore, a subgenre of alt-right memeing found initially on extremist corners of internet forums like 4Chan that essentially prophesizes about the vindictive return of a reignited President Donald Trump. As reported by Vox, the Dark MAGA aesthetic features Neo-Nazi iconography, fascist rhetoric, plus violent, white supremacist and accelerationist messaging.

From the combination of these two branches of right-wing memes came the concept of “Dark Brandon.” Highly stylized images of the president with pupil-less red eyes soon began popping up on Twitter, both from conservatives and irony-addled progressives seeking to create a mocking contract between the lackluster president and his diabolical alter ego. As Slate puts it, the meme transforms the president "from the creaky, besieged, chronically ineffective Delawarean we all know and love to a mastermind of the infernal arts."

In the late summer, as the president started to rack up legislative victories, left-wing Twitter began to see in Dark Brandon the prospect of reinvigorating the dismal and enfeebled brand of the Biden administration. Now enter: the Democratic establishment. The ranks of those who have shared Dark Brandon images include Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy (D—Conn.), White House aides, press officials from the Commerce and State Departments, and a number of Democratic communications staffers on Capitol Hill.

“Dark Brandon is crushing it,” tweeted deputy White House press secretary Andrew Bates, with an image of Biden with the signature glowing eyes and text that reads, “Your malarkey has been going on for long enough, kiddo.”

Much like “Let’s go, Brandon” served as a unifying maxim for Republicans, and before that “Thanks, Obama” — as coined by conservatives and later repackaged ironically by Democrats, the idea of Dark Brandon may have served as a much-needed deviation from the dismal political scene for Democrats this summer and provided some humorous camaraderie for voters demotivated by months of policy losses. But, the overeager attempts by establishment Democrats to capitalize on the meme’s popularity will ultimately be responsible for its demise.  As reported in The National Review: "Internet culture relies on irony and a certain level of transgressiveness — a meme is funny only so long as it represents a certain kind of insider humor." As soon as party officials tweeted Dark Brandon, the meme was already dead.

Somewhere along the way, though, the Democrats’ adoption and adaptation of right-wing diction became a moderately effective messaging strategy and allowed the administration to highlight some serious policy wins. Leaning into the Dark Brandon meme, the official White House Twitter snapped back at critics of Biden’s student loan forgiveness program in what one Twitter user deemed “the best White House trolling ever.” Quote-tweeting several representatives in opposition to student loan forgiveness, the White House underscored how much money that member of Congress had accepted in forgiven loans as part of the Paycheck Protection Program during the pandemic. 

The White House’s snarky thread of conservative call-outs was a stark deviation from the administration’s typically dull and meticulously managed media strategy. Dark Brandon, it appears, has breathed some life back into the administration and the party, and Biden is on the offensive.