It’s a Republic of Shitposters, If We Can Keep It

Lost in the general turmoil of the moment is news that, over the weekend, the President of the United States posted a Spongebob Squarepants meme. CNN reported it as part of its coverage of the email Elon Musk had sent out to all federal employees demanding to know what they were up to.

We live in a very stupid time and are governed by meme-fried brains. Resistance is taking many forms and some are meeting shitpost with shitpost.

In a comic mirror of the way Musk ran Twitter, the richest man in the world demanded that all employees of the federal government provide a list of five things they accomplished the previous week. This email went out on a Saturday and followed a post from Musk warning about the email on X, the website he owns.

Consistent with President @realDonaldTrump’s instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week.

Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 22, 2025

“Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation,” Musk said.

A lot of bosses told their employees not to respond. The email went out to everyone even tangentially related to the federal government. FBI Director Kash Patel told agents to “please pause any response.” The State Department told its employees that no one was actually obligated to respond. Tulsi Gabbard told DNI the same thing. So did the Pentagon.

But a lot of people did respond, and not all of them federal employees. The email wasn’t popular among already stressed out feds and the address it came from leaked online quickly from multiple sources. It was an Office of Personnel Management address related to the Human Resources department. Anyone, it seemed, could send along a little message about what they’d done that week.

You really can just email Elon Musk at [email protected] pic.twitter.com/67ynbglkZX

— ☀️ Jon Schwarz ☀️ (@schwarz) February 23, 2025

I just sent this email to Musk “HR” team why the fuck did they accept email from non government sources lmao fucking idiots, send them an email yourself : [email protected] pic.twitter.com/nMVhgrBGuY

— NAFOrious B.I.G. (CIA) 🇺🇸 (@NAFOrious_BIG) February 24, 2025

Just after midnight on Saturday, Trump deployed his Spongebob meme on Truth Social, the website he owns. It depicts the beloved cartoon character puzzling over a list of what he got done last week. “Cried about Trump, Cried about Elon…Cried about Trump and Elon some more,” the list said. It was not an original meme and bore the mark of Nick’s Dank Memes, a shitposting account that operates mostly on X. Based on its recent activity, the account was thrilled by the attention it got.

Donald Trump Truth Social Post 12:23 PM EST 02/23/25 pic.twitter.com/NbFbFZjDaZ

— Donald J. Trump Posts From His Truth Social (@TrumpDailyPosts) February 23, 2025

When Musk took the stage at CPAC last week he opened up his interview with memes. “I am become meme,” he said. There’s living the dream. And there’s living the meme.” Musk has, indeed, become meme. The whole government has. DOGE was a meme that’s come to life and Musk traffics in decade-old meme culture and warmed-over 4chan posts.

But meme culture is a two-way street. Live by the meme and die by the meme. This morning, for five minutes an AI-generated video of Trump sucking Elon Musk’s toes played on TV at the Dept of Housing and Urban Development. “LONG LIVE THE REAL KING,” a huge font said over the video.

As far as memes go, it was a visceral and disgusting one. An epic post, in the parlance of Musk. It was vibrant and real in a way that Musk and Trump’s posts aren’t.

this video of Trump kissing Elon Musk’s feet is playing in the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development cafeteria this morning

(per source @HUDgov) pic.twitter.com/hrojPdLDHQ

— Rachel Cohen (@rmc031) February 24, 2025

There are already protests against both Trump and Musk. The approval rate of both is dropping. Trump-appointed government officials are telling their employees to ignore Musk’s emails. The future is in flux. Resistance to this administration will take many forms. And there’s going to be a lot of very stupid memes along the way.