Every Presidential debate has its consequences, both intended and unintended, and there was certainly some of that in the second showdown between President Obama and Mitt Romney. While in the first debate Big Bird became an instant flashpoint on social media, this time it was “binders full of women”; both memes came from statements by Romney.
“I had the chance to pull together a cabinet and all the applicants seemed to be men,” Romney said during the debate. “And I went to my staff, and I said, ‘How come all the people for these jobs are all men ‘ They said, ‘Well, these are the people that have the qualifications.’ I went to a number of women’s groups and said, ‘Can you help us find folks,’ and they brought us whole binders full of women.”
The reaction was instant and viral. Facebook group Binders Full of Women had 220,000 “likes” overnight, Google search traffic for “binders full of women” skyrocketed by 425 percent during the first hour of the debate when Romney made the comment and was the No. 3 Google trending query for the night.
Tumblr images immediately started appearing on bindersfullofwomen.tumblr.com.
The hashtag #bindersfullofwomen trended on Twitter and multiple twitter accounts popped up related to Romney and binders. The Obama campaign apparently capitalized on the Twitter trend, buying ads that surfaced when users searched for #bindersfullofwomen on Twitter.
Source: CBS News
