Covfefe

2017

Date: 31 May 2017 · Place: Twitter, @realDonaldTrump · Figures: Donald Trump, president · Sean Spicer, press secretary · Tags: Politics, Typo, Twitter 01. 12:06 AM At 12:06 AM Eastern on 31 May 2017 President Donald Trump tweets Despite the constant negative press covfefe. The tweet stays live for nearly six hours before being deleted. By morning the word is on every front page in the country. Saturday Night Live, Jimmy Kimmel, the Merriam-Webster Twitter account, every late-night host, and every congressional Democrat run a covfefe joke that week. "Despite the constant negative press covfefe" — @realDonaldTrump, 31 May 2017, 12:06 AM EDT 02. Spicer's Non-Denial Press secretary Sean Spicer tells reporters at the 31 May briefing that the president and a small group of people know exactly what he meant. The line becomes its own meme. Covfefe is the moment the leader of a G7 country's typos become an item on the global meme stack within six hours. The episode is one of the clearest illustrations of the new compression: head of state, sleep tweet, mass humor event, all inside a news cycle. Sources • @realDonaldTrump, Twitter post, 31 May 2017, 00:06 EDT • Aaron Blake, The Washington Post, 'Covfefe: What Trump's typo means and why it matters', 31 May 2017 • KnowYourMeme entry, 'Covfefe'