Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez Is Now a Meme, and She’s in on It

This week, the right wing tried once again to attack Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over something unbelievably benign. After slamming her for such heinous offenses as growing up in a house and having a nickname, they escalated their crusade by trying to shame her for... dancing in college:

In a since-deleted tweet that was ratio’d to hell, @AnonymousQ1776 (an account that has also been deleted) wrote, “Here is America’s favorite commie know-it-all acting like a clueless nitwit she is...High School video of ‘Sandy’ Ocasio-Cortez.”

This tweet is very, very dumb in too many ways to count, but for starters, Ocasio-Cortez was actually in college when that video was made—her shirt says “Boston University” for fuck’s sake, which is her alma mater. Secondly, instead of making AOC look like a “clueless nitwit” (sick burn, bro), the clip just enlightened the world to the fact that on top of being rad as heck, the House Rep can tear it up on the dance floor. All in all, it was a ridiculous, try-hard failure of a “takedown,” which the internet quickly pointed out.

The internet wouldn’t be the internet if it didn’t immediately take the opportunity to turn this killer dance video into a meme—and thus @aoc_dances was born, a Twitter account that has racked up over 10,000 followers in less than 24 hours. The account is exactly what you’d expect: videos of AOC dancing to every song other than “Lisztomania.”

Valentina, an 18-year-old from Arizona who asked we withhold her last name for privacy reasons, is the brains behind the account. When the initial video went viral, she smartly predicted that a parody account would probably take off, too:

“And then I realized about 10 minutes later, ‘Hey, I want 10k followers,’” Valentina told me over Twitter DM.

She spent about four hours yesterday—10 PM until the wee hours of 2 AM—making the first batch of videos, she said, and she’s still going strong.

On Friday, Ocasio-Cortez even got in on the meme herself, deciding to boogie into her new office in the Capitol Building to Edwin Starr’s “War”:

The congresswoman reportedly handled the resurrection of the video with grace, telling the Hill’s Olivia Beavers it was "not normal for elected officials to have a reputation for dancing well, and I'm happy to be one.” She also apparently took the opportunity to own the GOP.

“It is unsurprising to me that Republicans would think having fun should be disqualifying or illegal,” she told Beavers.

Valentina said Ocasio-Cortez’s personality, along with, of course, her politics, is what’s made her such a big fan.

“She has such great ideas, and I can actually relate to her as a representative,” she said. “I feel like people generally like her from liberals to leftists. We need more socialists in office!”

We’ll have to wait and see if Valentina’s wish comes true, but in the meantime, we can busy ourselves by watching the youngest congresswoman in US history dance to everything from “Mr. Brightside” to “All Star."

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