Romney’s ‘Binders full of women’ comment creates new Amazon meme
Some items sold on Amazon capture our imaginations, give us the opportunity to showcase our sense of humour and post off the wall comments.
This week the Amazon meme is down to a comment from presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
For those of you who are not slavishly following the run up to the election in the US, the second presidential debate last Tuesday evening provided the inspiration for the meme.
Romney was talking about gender equality and wondered why all the applicants ‘seemed to be men’. Romney pushed his staff to search for more women.
“I went to a number of women’s groups and said, ‘Can you help us find folks?’ ” said Romney. “And [they] brought us whole binders full of women.
There is irony, wit, poetry and prose across the product range at Amazon.
Have a look at some of the comments for the Wheelmate Laptop steering wheel desk, How to avoid huge ships, Tuscan whole milk or a BIC Crystal for her pen. We like to inject a little humour into the buying process.
There is also the Veet for Men Hair removal Creme (Warning language NSFW), UFO detector, Whole rabbit, Uranium ore and my personal favourite the Mountain three wolf short sleeve tee complete with video song.
Now political pundits, wags and wits are expressing themselves on Amazon’s Avery durable view binder (‘IT DOES NOT COME WITH WOMEN’) page with comments such as:
‘if you're looking for a binder to fill with women, this is the right one for you. A woman's place is in her binder’.
‘I just love being in here with all the girls! It's like our own little club. Who knew we were all so competent? What I want to know is. . . can we still cook and stay within the binder?’
‘This is hands down the best binder ever manufactured in China’.
I’m sure that there are many more items across Amazon with runaway comment memes.
Social media anthropologists must be filled with glee watching the link propagate across Facebook and Twitter. A Tumblr site was quickly compiled dedicated to the phrase. A new meme has been born, and it shows no sign of dying just yet.
And with the seemingly inexhaustible supply of verbal gaffes by people in the media, there will be more to come for sure.
Well done Internet – and well done Amazon for our latest smile.