IIf being glued to the Paris Games was a skill, the people who run the official Olympic Games social media accounts would have struck gold – and they want you to know it:
Their post, depicting Simone Biles’ multiple medals with the caption “If only watching every second of the Olympics was an Olympic sport,” which was shared Monday on X and other platforms is just one of the many times accounts of social media Olympic Games It is Paris 2024 have adopted or created memes – typically humorous or relatable images, videos, GIFs and/or text that spread across the Internet and which can often reference an existing trend.
The Paris Games have already treated viewers to a treasure trove of indelible characters – from heartthrob Kim Yeji to pommel horse guy Stephen Nedoroscik, cheese-sponsored gymnast Giorgia Villa and even the inanimate but highly acclaimed chocolate muffins of the Olympic Village.
While regular social media users can often be credited with organically latching on to quirky moments and sending them viral, the official Olympics social media accounts, which are typically dedicated to posting highlights and event schedules and results, have joined join in the fun.
When a photo that captured Brazilian surfer Gabriel Medina in the air quickly emerged as one of the most iconic photos from this summer’s Olympics, it received an editing treatment that is out of this world – literally. A series of posts from Paris 2024 photoshopped the surfer floating higher and higher in the sky until he said hello to French astronaut Thomas Pesquet in space.
After French swimmer Léon Marchand made history Upon winning gold in two separate events on the same night, the official Paris 2024 account published a photo of Marchand that sought to capture a collective sense of awe and disbelief surrounding the athlete’s seemingly inhuman feat.
A few days later, when Marchand added a fourth gold medal to his tally, the Paris 2024 account doubled down on the joke.
And when shooters Kim Yeji of South Korea and Yusuf Dikeç of Turkey, who won silver medals in their respective events, conquered the internet with their coolness and precision, the Olympics report joined in the fawning over them:
The Olympics also channeled rapper and Olympic commentator Snoop Dogg, who has gone viral for his reactions and general fun he appears to be having in Paris.
Perhaps the most popular meme, appropriate for the Paris Olympics, is a riff on the expression “hang it in the Louvre,” often applied to photos of iconic moments.
When someone joked that Mona Lisa’s portrait could be replaced with a photo of France’s Cassandre Beaugrand winning the Olympic triathlon, the people behind the Paris 2024 report delivered. “With pleasure!” they wrote, along with a photoshopped image of Beaugrand in the famous frame.
French judoka Teddy Riner, who won two gold medals in Paris, also received the Louvre treatment. “On this level, it is art,” Paris 2024 posted.
The memes that have peppered the feeds of official Olympics accounts come as more companies, organizations and even presidential campaigns lean into this new promotion strategy, dubbed meme marketingthat some to say can have a greater reach than traditional advertising – the more unbalanced, the better (although also more risky).
Others are also trying to capitalize on the buzz of the Olympics.
The North American broadcaster of the Games, NBC, also did I posted a lot of memes-in hanging a photo of Biles in the Louvre to make a Yu Gi Oh Card it is a superhero comics from Team USA anime fan Noah Lyles and Clark Kent Stephen Nedoroscik, respectively, to mock the old and new faces of former swimmer and 23-time Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps.
On Monday, when the official Olympics account published a viral photo of Biles and her teammate Jordan Chiles bowing to Brazilian gold medalist Rebeca Andrade as “all”, the official account of the Louvre Museum responded with a winking emoji: “Maybe we should hang it in the Louvre…”
This story originally appeared on Time.com read the full story
