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Bernie Sanders reignites viral meme with shopping bag marked 'shirts', Internet says it has 'pants, obviously'

On President Joe Biden's inauguration day, an image of Sanders wearing an oversized mitten and a brown coat, sitting isolated, socially distant, went viral

Senator Bernie Sanders is no stranger to going viral on social media. This time, he is trending on Twitter after a picture of him carrying a shopping bag labeled "Shirts" went viral. 

The Vermont Senator is a hit on social media with the most numbers on followers of Facebook and Twitter combined among legislators. Once the image was shared, it took no time for social media users to send it trending. 

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The picture shared on Twitter was taken as Sanders walked through the Capitol, and particularly highlighted the "Shirts" bit. "@SenSanders arrives to Dirksen Building on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2021. #shirts"

And immediately everyone knew what is going to come next. "I smell a meme coming on," one tweeted. "Oh my god how is this man so memeable," another said. "Oh, no — so many Bernie memes I can't keep up," a user wrote. 

"I wonder what's in the bag..." one user tweeted, to which another wrote, "Pants, obviously." "If Bernie Sanders is going to buy shirts anywhere, you bet it is going to be from a store called SHIRTS," another user commented.

'Fashion icon'

"I love how @SenSanders is evolving into a fashion icon!!!" a user added noting the last time that Sanders went viral. "Can't not be iconic," a user said. On President Joe Biden's inauguration day, an image of Sanders wearing an oversized mitten and a brown coat, sitting isolated, socially distant, went viral.

It quickly became an inspiration for everything from being an addition to a cast of a movie or an already existing meme. The image was clicked by a Washington-based photojournalist who covers politics for AFP. Brendan Smialowski.

At the time, Sanders had said, "I was just sitting there trying to keep warm, trying to pay attention to what was going on." Appearing on the 'Late Night with Seth Meyers', he said, "What was really nice is the woman who made the mittens lives in Essex Junction, Vermont. She is a schoolteacher and a very, very nice person. She has been somewhat overwhelmed by the kind of attention that is being shown to her mittens," he added.

Buzzfeed political reporter Ruby Cramer was quick to point out the significance of Sanders' outfit, tweeting about his mittens, "Bernie’s mittens are made by Jen Ellis, a teacher from Essex Junction, Vt. She gave them to him 2+ years ago and was surprised when he began wearing them on the campaign trail. They are made from repurposed wool sweaters and lined with fleece made from recycled plastic bottles."

We had earlier reported that according to a study by Pew Research Center, when one rounds up his followers on both these platforms, Sanders has a following of 21.7 million. These numbers are from Pew's tallies of the number of social media followers of each legislator between January 1, 2015 to December 31, 2020.