8 viral memes from the 2012 election

The big winner from Tuesday’s night debate was neither President Obama nor Mitt Romney, but the phrase “binders full of women.”

In case you missed it, Romney said that when he staffed his cabinet as governor of Massachusetts, his aides brought him a “binder full of women” from which to select his key advisors. The term caught fire on social media, birthing several websites, a Twitter account, a Tumblr feed, and reams of tweets.

That’s what you call a meme, a pop culture topic that quickly goes viral online.

The 2012 presidential election has launched a number of memes. Here are eight of them (in no particular order):

“You didn’t build that”

Obama’s critics pounced on a statement he made in July, in which he said, “If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” The Romney campaign repeated the line, suggesting the president was referring to small businesses when he said “that.” In fact, Obama was referring to infrastructure. Still, the attacks drew blood and the statement led to images, hashtags, and at least one rap video set to “U Can’t Touch This.”