Saruman Magically Summoning

Submission 14,189

Part of a series on Lord Of The Rings. [View Related Entries]

About

Saruman Magically Summoning refers to a series of image and GIF caption memes that satirically mock unusual voting activity and astroturfing. In the format, various people "magically summon" large amounts of voters or fans to support somebody or something.

Origin

On November 4th, 2020, iFunny^[1] user Fred1337 (authorship unconfirmed) posted a GIF caption meme based on a GIF of Saruman from The Lord of the Rings holding his hand over Palantíri about the 3am spike in the vote count in Wisconsin that benefited presidential candidate Joe Biden in the 2020 United States presidential election. The meme described the jump as "Joe Biden magically summoning 110,920 unnamed Wisconsin civilians to vote for him at 3am" and gained 80 smiles in two years (shown below).

Spread

In early November 2020, the meme and its screenshot was widely circulated by users on iFunny^[2]^[3] and Twitter.^[4]

The image did not see use as a meme format until mid-October 2021, when an unknown user humorously recaptioned (shown below, left). On October 13th, 2021, Redditor^[5] maxd678 made the earliest found repost of the image to the /r/shitposting subreddit, where it gained over 320 upvotes.

The image, when posted to Facebook and Instagram, triggered an automated fact-checking disclaimer, which prompted users to share the screenshots of such post. For example, on October 13th, 2021, Instagram^[6] user new.incognito.tab shared a screenshot of the image with the automated disclaimer, with the post gaining over 38,000 likes in eight months (shown below, center). On October 16th, iFunny^[7] user filth_ posted a screenshot of the image with two automated disclaimers, with the post garnering over 160 smiles (shown below, right).

Following the viral spread of the October 2021 posts, the image achieved popularity as a meme format about voter fraud and astroturfing. For example, on October 27th, 2021, Instagram^[8] page yourhistoryplug posted a history meme based on the format that gained over 2,600 likes in eight months (shown below, left). On March 11th, 2022, Twitter^[9] user @JAPversus made a post that gained over 2,100 retweets and 18,200 likes (shown below, right).

Blaming the Rothschilds

Blaming the Rothschilds refers to a series of memes in which the blame for life's misfortunes, no matter how minute or random, is blamed on the Rothschilds, an influential "old money" Jewish family. A parody of anti-Semitic conspiracy memes, the format gained virality on iFunny in October 2022. The meme is often used in conjunction with the Saruman Magically Summoning meme format.