The 2024 Kamala Harris campaign included a Dril meme in a press release and the terminally online are dropping dead at the sight. This appears to be another attempt to cater to the elusive youth vote, which has been drawn to the Democratic ticket since President Joe Biden dropped out of the race to be replaced by Vice President Harris.
Dril is one of the most widely known Twitter users without being a celebrity or other public figure due to his skill in what the kids call “sh-tposting.”
Who is Dril?
The Twitter user known as @dril remained largely a mystery for 15 years before finally agreeing to a profile by The Ringer in 2023. His legal name, Paul Dochney, had been revealed five years earlier, but this was his first real out-of-character interview.
It turns out that Dril is a 36-year-old man from New Jersey, but you likely know him as the blurry Jack Nicholson avatar who regularly puts out bizarre tweets that sometimes go mega viral and become memes. Even if you aren’t familiar with the name, you may have seen references to a tweet about spending $3,600 on candles or how you get drafted into the Skeleton War.
The prolific and skilled shitposter enjoys 1.8 million followers and typically gets thousands of likes on his tweets, and only occasionally forays into real-world issues.
What is a Dril meme?
Dril memes are simply his tweets because they’re bizarre and quotable enough to be spread across multiple social media platforms and remain in the hearts and minds of people around the world. They tend to include little to no punctuation or capitalization.
They’re almost guaranteed to make an appearance when certain topics start trending online. For example, the candles tweet lists out a monthly budget for a family that includes very reasonable spending aside from the $3,600 on candles and asks for advice.
This entry nearly always shows up any time a rich Twitter user complains that a million dollars isn’t a lot of money and trots out their own budget to complain that they’re living paycheck to paycheck.
In the Harris/Walz Dril meme press release, the tweet they chose was another highly popular one that reads “and another thing: im not mad. please don’t put in the newspaper that i got mad.” The campaign’s intent was to mock opponent Donald Trump for what they called a “public meltdown” in a recent press conference.
2017 Patreon launch
In 2017, Dril launched a Patreon account to supplement his income and allow him to work on additional projects related to his persona, including “video, illustration, and long-form writing.” This included a full book, published in August 2018, titled Dril Official “Mr. Ten Years” Anniversary Collection.
He has since published two more books and launched an Adult Swim show called TruthPoint to parody Alex Jones’ InfoWars. As of 2023, he was reportedly working on a video game.
Patreon patrons can choose from two support tiers: “Disgusting” at $3 per month and “F—ed” at $6 per month. He’s currently pulling in $1,176 monthly this way.
Reddit doxxes Dril
On September 15, 2017, a Reddit user posted credits for one Paul Dochney as a writer for a Homestuck video game called Hiveswap and claimed that this man was the Twitter star known as Dril. We don’t have time to explain what Homestuck is. Two months later, a Tumblr user discovered the Reddit post and expressed their feelings on the news.
Tumblr, known both for its Homestuck preoccupation and snooping behavior, managed to confirm Dril’s identity in a matter of hours.
Dril responds to Harris-Walz press release
Dochney wasn’t about to be outdone by the attention the Harris campaign was getting for its Dril meme press release. His response referenced disturbing reports of IDF soldiers committing horrific acts of sexual abuse upon detained Palestinians.
In a quote tweet of a post spreading the news of the press release, Dril remarked: “in case you thought IDF Rape Camps were the worst thing our government is sanctioning.”
Related memes:
- Mitch McConnell uses a classic Dril meme to attack Ocasio-Cortez
- Kamala Harris Political Compass memes exist in the context of what has been
- Kamala Harris has announced that, if elected…
- Just 30 really good Tim Walz memes
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