New Zealand swoons over political meme

‘Hot Orange Guy’ has officially taken over.

If you’re one of the few under 25 year-olds who hasn’t heard of this phenomenon, let me fill you in: it’s a meme injecting the ‘Hot’ into the official New Zealand election icon, ‘Orange Guy.’

To paint a picture, the first post is a Snapchat selfie with the caption, “Nooo, you’re too cute not to vote aha.”

Daniel Vernon is the master behind the hilarity, and originally created it as a gig poster for his band Dartz.

“It took me little to no time to make...I just morphed him into this millennial, dreamboat kind of guy,” he said.

His first ‘Hot Orange Guy’ post went out on August 9, and instantly blew up, stacking up thousands of likes on multiple platforms.

“It was nuts, it was really really cool to see,” he said.

‘Hot Orange Guy’ isn’t the only interesting image on Daniel’s feed. The Wellington graphic designer’s ‘Yeehawtheboys’ account is filled with comic-style rewrites of news articles and political moments.

One pic shows Judith Collins saying, “Te Reo? We will name a couple roads some easy-to-pronounce Māori names. That should just about do it for that,” and another portrays her as The Grinch with the slogan, “Let’s steal Christmas.”

Another post rewrites a NZ Herald headline from ‘This landlord started with $3000. Now he owns 17 rental properties,’ to ‘Old white man owns seventeen rental properties.’

Vernon is making a statement through his memes: that politics and media are corrupt, and that power imbalances are constantly being played on. “They know what they’re doing and they’re getting away with it,” he said.

Inserting myself in here: when I messaged Daniel on Instagram about writing a story, I doubted I’d get a reply. As a journalism student and someone who wants to contribute to the life of New Zealand media, I figured he’d instantly be repulsed and count me as bad as NZ Herald’s ‘churnalists’.

I was very surprised with his ‘yes’ after four minutes, and later found out that he was particularly fond of Massive after working with the team a few years ago.

Moving on: Poverty divides, racial bias and privilege are his biggest frustrations, as a direct result of his experience both as a student at the University of Auckland, and as a person with Māori whakapapa growing up in a low-income household in Wairoa.

“In terms of political stuff, you kind of accidentally get political in terms of your experience.”

Now, his combination of knowledge and wit has earned him a strong online following, but not without a fair share of backlash.

Some commenters complain that he’s tearing down the parties or policies he doesn’t like, and failing to acknowledge the good mahi being done.

“I will make comics about other parties, but this stuff is blatantly playing on racial bias,” he said.

But his political views take a backseat to the wider goal of getting a new audience engaged in politics. “If I’ve convinced anyone to vote, then it’s a job well done.”

I don’t know about you, but I think New Zealand’s voting icon needs an official makeover. Forget the dog, let’s make him hot.