Oops. Rick Perry’s gaffe unintentionally tickled the Internet masses.
While political pundits and journalists declare Rick Perry’s presidential campaign over following his “oops” gaffe at last night’s Republican presidential debate, the Internet has taken to lampooning him. Perry’s “oops” moment has even been meme-ified.
Is all press bad press though?
On a video of Rick Perry failing to name the third government department to be cut, MetalGearFall2008 wrote, “Rick Perry just committed his presidential campaign’s suicide.” This seems to be the popular sentiment and was echoed by the Huffington Post, Christian Science Monitor, Detroit Free Press and even the BBC.
Besides leaving mocking comments on hundreds of YouTube videos of Perry’s bad moment (which have been viewed collectively more than a million times), YouTubers steadily uploaded parody videos and mocking vlogs throughout the night and following morning.
Like the mainstream media, they’ve written him off.
“Perry just proved why we need to keep the department of education” commented omegafatrayo on the most popular version of the video on YouTube, titled “Watch Rick Perry’s Campaign End Before Your Eyes.”
One of the most popular parody videos involved Keyboard Cat, a meme used to “play someone off” when they have failed miserably. (Indeed, many versions of Rick Perry’s “Oops” video include the word “fail.”)
“That was seriously the saddest thing I have ever seen” said ReactionResponseKING in his vlog.
If this does go down as Perry’s failed moment, it won’t be the first time a presidential candidate has been taken down by a singular, easily repeated, on-camera mistake. In 2004 Howard Dean famously took a nose dive in his bid to become the Democratic presidential candidate with his wild scream that reverberated across the electronic landscape.
