Support truly
independent journalism
Many Americans were enjoying a summer afternoon when Joe Biden announced his stunning withdrawal from the presidential race on Sunday and the news ricocheted across the country in unexpected ways.
On X, formerly known as Twitter, people shared the strange and hilarious sources that delivered the Biden news to them — from horny emoji chain letters to coconut memes and learning about it at the farmers’ market.
A bewildered Wolf Blitzer appeared on CNN to discuss the breaking news, just shortly after the CNN host had posted a photo of himself enjoying a Wolf Spritzer cocktail during Sunday brunch at DC’s El Presidente restaurant.
Others found out via Pop Crave, a celebrity news account on X whose news announcements regularly rack up tens of thousands of likes.
Liza Minnelli Outlives, another X account which keeps track of major events that the Academy Award-winning actress has outlived, also broke the news to this editor.
Meanwhile, one group chat misinterpreted that Biden was not just out of the race, but out of the closet, too. “Biden out,” wrote one person. “as gay???” replied another.
The news caught Sunday shoppers unexpectedly, such as a reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times who found out while a woman weighed a child on the vegetable scales at the farmer’s market.
Family group chats seemed to stay on top of the news: one sibling joked that Biden’s withdrawal means it is “only just Kamalencing.”
Those viral horny emoji chain letters broke the news to others — we can’t embed the image ourselves here due to editorial guidelines around swearing but you can see it here.
While some found out via jokes about coconuts, referencing Kamala Harris’s viral coconut tree line.
Quite a lot of basketball fans found out because they had Twitter alerts set up for The Athletic reporter Shams Charania, who normally posts about the NBA but decided the Biden news was worth a shot.
And a Rolling Stone writer speculated that rock singer Bruce Springsteen, who has performed for Biden and was on stage in Norway when the news broke, may have been the last to know.
