Hillary Clinton Responds to Her Meme ... With a Meme

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The guys behind TextsFromHillary, texting with Hillary [image via TextsFromHillary]

The TextsFromHillary Tumblr is still the "best political meme of the election cycle so far." Though the site launched last week -- a lifetime ago, in Internet years -- it's kept the lolz coming, adding images of a sassy Secretary featuring, as supporting characters, Mark Zuckerberg, Joe Biden, Anna Wintour, Jon Stewart, Rachel Maddow, and Meryl Streep.

Today, however, the site got one more new submission. From Hillary Clinton.*

Yep. Per a tweet from TextsFromHillary co-memer Adam Smith:

But it doesn't stop there. Earlier today, the two guys who, fueled by a combination of humor, Tumblr, and cocktails, transformed the Secretary of State into an Internet Celebrity ... met that Internet Celebrity in person. And texted with her and everything. 

The results of that meeting are archived not only in the photo above, but also in the image below: a printed-out version of Clinton's self-made meme, autographed in pen by one "Hillz."

hillzps.jpg

"The many LOLZ"! The meta, it is almost too much. 

So the story has a happy ending for all involved: The guys get rewarded for their work, the Internet gets some laughs, and Hillary gets some cred for laughing right along with us. But today's turn of events brings with it a new question, too: What, actually, just happened? What do you call it when the subject of a meme responds to that very meme with a meme of her own? What is the specific, socio-scientific term to describe something so meta -- and meta-meta, and meta-meta-meta -- that it hints at the idea that it won't be the Hadron Collider that leads the earth to implode into itself, but rather an echoing infinity of lolz?

A meta-meme? An instance of, as Jared Keller suggests, "memeception"? 

Or, to be less serious about the whole thing, you could also just call it Hillarity. (Rimshot... in an empty club.)

*Well, more likely, a member of her staff. But still.

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Megan Garber is a staff writer at The Atlantic. She was formerly an assistant editor at the Nieman Journalism Lab, where she wrote about innovations in the media.

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