9 Viral Moments Brought to You By the 2012 Debates

Oct. 23, 2012— -- Oh, the memories… It's been 20 days since the first debate and because stuff on the Internet is old after five minutes, we decided to take you on a trip down memory lane. Here are nine of our favorite viral moments, because that's all people will remember from the 2012 debates. Hope you still love them as much as we do!

1. Big Bird Gets Fired

In the first presidential debate on October 3rd, Mitt Romney announced that not only would he cut off funding for PBS and thus leaving debate moderator Jim Lehrer without a job, but he would also be firing Big Bird especifically. Romney's exact words were: "I'm sorry, Jim. I'm going to stop the subsidy to PBS. I'm going to stop other things. I like PBS. I love Big Bird. I actually like you too. But I'm not going to -- I'm not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for it."

Twitter accounts supporting the Sesame Street character popped up everywhere. As did images of him looking for a job and calling Romney a few choice names.

2. A Hair-Raising Trade

What would happen if Obama and Romney traded hair? What about Ryan and Biden? Well, thanks to designer Shelby White (@shelbywhite) we got to see what woudl happen if candidates' traded locks. As it turns out, it's just plain scary. Although we have to admit that new hair give Romney and Obama some Latino flavor.

3. Binders Full of Women

As soon as Romney finished saying "binders full of women" during the second debate on October 16th, it was an instant meme. In fact, not only is there an entire Tumblr dedicated exclusively to images of binders and women, products on Amazon got trolled with fake reviews regarding Romney's comment, and some people even dressed up as actual binders. Just wait for it: on Halloween night, you'll see plenty binders full of women costumes.

4. & 5. Malarkey Makes Biden Smile

Joe Biden was the star of the vice presidential debate on October 11th. Not only did he have people creating parody accounts for him and his dentist based on his awesome smile, but he also made the word "malarkey" a thing. In case you're still wondering what he meant by that, here's the dictionary's meaning: "Meaningless talk; nonsense." Can you believe that would ever happen at a debate?

6. What's My Name

Wondering which moment of the second presidential debate got the most tweets per minutes? Read the transcript below:

ROMNEY: Is it Loraina?

OSORIO: Lorraine.

ROMNEY: Lorraine?OSORIO: Yes, Lorraine.

ROMNEY: Lorraine.

OSORIO: How you doing?

ROMNEY: Good, thanks.

It wasn't just because Romney got a Hispanic woman's name wrong, but he did it right as the topic of immigration was being brought up. We asked Lorraine how she felt about the Governor messing up her name. "I really don't care," she said. "As long as they heard my question -- that's fine with me."

7. The Romney Look

Josh Romney, Mitt's third son, seemed extremely serious at the second presidential debate. BuzzFeed clearly noticed and put together a multi-pane image zooming into Josh's face. Um, Scary!

8. Horses and Bayonets

Meme generation was slow during last night's debate. So when President Obama brought up "horses and bayonets" people rushed to create... You guessed it: parody accounts. Obama's words to Romney were: "You mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military's changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines."

9. To Moderate or Not to Moderate

Last, but definitely not least comes Jim Lehrer. The moderator of the first presidential debate was criticized for being too soft on both candidates and letting them speak past their allowed time. Someone immediately created a parody account with more 9,000 followers, that is constantly being interrupted.

Ahhh the 2012 debates memes. Will they remain the highlight of this election season? We have two weeks until election night to find out.