On Wednesday night, Instagram was flooded with memes.

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The flurry of satirical memes were sent out around 5 p.m. Wednesday from nearly two dozen accounts with millions of followers in total. Social media erupted, and for a moment it was all chaos and confusion, until a connection was made.

Political advertising has officially hit meme accounts. Wow.pic.twitter.com/y1ZLeWnebg

— Greg Hempenius (@ghempi)June 29, 2025

meme accounts are posting sponcon about bloomberg??? kick me into the sunpic.twitter.com/50IMdRKoNW

— morgan sung (@morgan_sung)July 22, 2025

The New York Timesreportedthatthe Instagram eruption was part of Meme2020, an effort between the Bloomberg campaign and Jerry Media, “a media and marketing company that is a powerful force in the influencer economy.” You mightalso know Jerry Media from its role in the ill-fated Fyre Festival.

Sabrina Singh, a spokesperson for the Bloomberg campaign, told Digital Trends in a statement that while memes are new to presidential campaigns, “we’re betting it will be an effective component to reach people where they are and compete with President Trump’s powerful digital operation.”

Not just Bloomberg

Donald Trump’s team has spentmore than $21 millionon Facebook ads since May 2018. To combat Trump’s spending, Bloomberg’s team has beendropping more than $1 million a dayon the social network over the past few weeks, according to NBC. He’s also come out against his fellow Democratic candidates who call for the breakup of big tech, saying “Breaking things up just to be nasty is not an answer.”

This isn’t Bloomberg’s first outreach to internet influencers either.The Daily Beast reported last weekthat, in another viral stint, the Bloomberg campaign was advertising on Tribe, a platform where social media influencers can connect with advertisers and team up to make branded content. For a flat $150 fee, creators would post about Bloomberg’s electability and his ability to “rise above the fray.”

You could say Trump meme’d his way to the presidency, too. Google “Trump shares meme” anda stockpile of bizarre tweetssurface. Trump’s also been known toshare dystopian-esque memes, and include byte-worthy bits into speeches thatsend his base into frenzy.

So memes are not new. Even political memes are not new — politicians know what makes a viral moment, and often play along to capture as many likes, favorites, and retweets as they can.

Take House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’ssarcastic clapbackduring Trump’s second State of Union address. Or herripping up his speechafter his third.

“You have to meet voters where they are using any means at your disposal, so this is a smart strategy by the Bloomberg team,” said Eric Koch, a Democratic strategist based in New York.

And that’s exactly what Reid Hailey, co-founder and CEO of Doing Things Media, thought when he was approached by Mick Purzycki, head of the Meme 2020 project. Reid knew the type of mockery Bloomberg’s campaign proposed would be a hit among his combined audience of more than 50 million people.

“We specialize in making people laugh, and when this campaign was brought to us, we wanted to jump on the opportunity to be included on it,” said Reid in a statement to Digital Trends.

Reid and his team own and operate over 20 “top comedy accounts” that include @shitheadsteve, @nochaser, @middleclassfancy, @trashcanpaul, @golfersdoingthings, @gamersdoingthings, @festivalist, @doyouevenlift, @neatdad, @neatmom, and @fourtwenty.

With this kind of pull, no wonder social media was set ablaze Wednesday night. Viral meme accounts can reach millions of users in just a matter of minutes. And other political campaigns may be taking notice.

“I suspect you will see more of this in the future,” said Koch. “We’ve already seen how effective it is.”