The news that President Trump has fired White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci just 10 days after hiring him lit up Twitter on Monday afternoon. It’s exactly the kind of chaotic, melodramatic news fodder that makes for prime internet joke-slinging: Trump, acting under the influence of his newly hired chief of staff John Kelly, reportedly allowed Kelly to axe Scaramucci immediately after Kelly was sworn in. And that’s on top of the fact that Kelly has just replaced Trump’s former chief of staff, Reince Priebus, who was himself pushed out of the administration on Friday.
Anthony Scaramucci is out, but the Mooch jokes are forever
Twitter reactions to Scaramucci’s firing quickly became a (frequently hilarious) pile-on.
Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images
Aja Romano wrote about pop culture, media, and ethics. Before joining Vox in 2016, they were a staff reporter at the Daily Dot. A 2019 fellow of the National Critics Institute, they’re considered an authority on fandom, the internet, and the culture wars.
The White House issuing two high-profile pink slips in such a short time span, combined with Scaramucci’s recent notoriety after his jaw-dropping, obscenity-laced phone call with New Yorker reporter Ryan Lizza, made the opportunity to comment simply too good for many people to ignore. As the news rapidly swept across the internet, the jokes came from virtually every corner.
Even members of Congress and former White House communications staffers couldn’t resist joining in:
It would be hard to encompass the full depth and breadth of Twitter Scaramucci jokes, so we’re not even going to try. Just know that there’s something for everyone, whether your thing is “Bohemian Rhapsody” quips ...
... TV references ...
... crude photo memes ...
... schadenfreude ...
... poll predictions and pool jokes ...
... earnest reactions from people whose initial surprise forestalled any attempts at humor ...
... or candid responses from people whose initial surprise itself became the joke:
In the middle of so much “excitement,” it’s easy to overlook a simple, straightforward truth: that the instantaneous nature of the internet allowed millions of social media users to experience and react to the news of Scaramucci’s firing more or less simultaneously. Much like Trump’s #covfefe kerfuffle from earlier this year, the outpouring of Mooch tweets, jokes, and reactions stood in for what was essentially our collective double-take.
And now the continued retweets, “Mooch” hashtags, and meme-ing will serve as a way to keep the shock, drama, and humor of the moment going. It’s possible that the internet’s Mooch joke cycle may last longer than Scaramucci’s actual White House tenure — unless, of course, Trump fires someone else.
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