> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://hyperallergic.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # The Best Memes From the New York City Mayoral Election - URL: https://hyperallergic.com/the-best-memes-from-the-new-york-city-mayoral-election/ - Published: 2025-11-05T22:25:38.000Z - Updated: 2025-11-24T15:06:52.000Z - Description: Hot mayor representation, Shakira law, and unemployed Andrew Cuomo — all you could want, and more. - Author: Lisa Yin Zhang - Tags: Feature, Memes, New York, Zohran Mamdani, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-large, #Import 2025-11-24 09:41 (2025) New York is a tale of a million cities. A city of arts, of finance; a melting pot, a crucible. We’ve got the most billionaires on earth, while one in three residents faces food insecurity. The largest Muslim population in the country — and the largest Jewish, Chinese, and Dominican communities, too. Yesterday, between the hours of 6am and 9pm, this cacophony of voices, this messy congregation, got a chance to speak aloud who we want to be. I heard the celebration before I received the notification: Zohran Mamdani will be the 111th mayor of New York City. Our first Muslim mayor, elected a quarter-century after the ugly wave of Islamophobia following 9/11, which the sitting president of the United States continues to inflame. Our youngest in more than a century. He represents a more equitable future, a more hopeful one, a kinder one. A culmination of what it looks like to dream together [across lifetimes](https://www.businessinsider.com/all-the-thinkers-and-activists-referenced-in-zohran-mamdanis-speech-2025-11?ref=hyperallergic.com). *Vox populi*, indeed. But beyond the ballot box, memes are another way the people speak — one of the most populist avenues of expression we have, the graffiti of the internet age. In the last almost-decade, beginning 2016 — the first of my adult life, the first since I've had a vote — those have mostly been the laugh-to-keep-from-weeping variety, for obvious reasons. We’ve used them to unravel[ the real-time martyrdom of false prophets](https://hyperallergic.com/934283/how-memes-unravel-the-image-of-trump-as-martyr/), to defuse the destructive potential of xenophobic violence, to air out our [grievances](https://hyperallergic.com/953797/christmas-comes-early-with-bounty-of-eric-adams-indictment-memes/). But we also use them to give [voice to our hope](https://hyperallergic.com/zohran-mamdani-memes-remind-us-good-things-can-still-happen/). And of course, we use them to celebrate. My fellow New Yorkers, in your own words: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2025/11/screenshot-2025-11-05-at-5-42-59-pm.png) (@TaylorLorenz via [X](https://x.com/TaylorLorenz/status/1985899665741521135?ref=hyperallergic.com)) And also in Kamala Harris's words: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2025/11/image-39.png) (@gaysforzohran via [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/p/DQqI5lnjNsZ/?img%5Findex=1&ref=hyperallergic.com)) We laughed, we cried, we got White boy wasted: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2025/11/screenshot-2025-11-05-at-5-44-02-pm.png) (@jacobkornbluh via [X](https://x.com/jacobkornbluh/status/1985917133956763824?ref=hyperallergic.com)) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2025/11/screenshot-2025-11-05-at-5-44-24-pm.png) (@ lllliatttt via [X](https://x.com/lllliatttt/status/1985934686032662791?ref=hyperallergic.com)) This election gave us hope, and not just for the city: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2025/11/screenshot-2025-11-05-at-5-44-50-pm.png) (@Rodericka via [X](https://x.com/Rodericka/status/1985931323932807311?ref=hyperallergic.com)) We got some representation — speaking not as an Asian American at this moment, but as a baddie: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2025/11/screenshot-2025-11-05-at-5-47-06-pm.png) (@caitlin\_mmm via [X](https://x.com/caitlin%5Fmmm/status/1985902771703554473?ref=hyperallergic.com)) The “Graphic Design Is My Passion” among us found a muse: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2025/11/screenshot-2025-11-05-at-5-47-59-pm.png) (@BarbieAgitprop via [X](https://x.com/BarbieAgitprop/status/1985892843143991681?ref=hyperallergic.com)) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2025/11/screenshot-2025-11-05-at-5-48-17-pm.png) (@RealConorOil via [X](https://x.com/RealConorOil/status/1985940694750679217?ref=hyperallergic.com)) We clowned on racist takes, laying bare the ridiculousness at their core: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2025/11/screenshot-2025-11-05-at-5-48-40-pm.png) (@herman.fun via [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQpQv9qkueG/?igsh=MXg1czF1cXk2dm13eA%3D%3D&ref=hyperallergic.com)) https://www.tiktok.com/@sprinklesofreality/video/7568935055523925279?\_r=1&\_t=ZT-919Fi5Q3LYL ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2025/11/screenshot-2025-11-05-at-5-49-06-pm.png) (@PresidentToguro via [X](https://x.com/PresidentToguro/status/1985940618602762542?ref=hyperallergic.com)) Sharia law? More like — https://www.tiktok.com/@duribistan/video/7569135356495400222?\_r=1&\_t=ZT-919GaF4IVC3 ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2025/11/screenshot-2025-11-05-at-5-46-12-pm.png) Even Rama got in on it. (@zukolore via [X](https://x.com/zukolore/status/1985880993631240629?s=46&ref=hyperallergic.com)) We made [in-jokes so particular](https://annekadet.substack.com/p/sherita) that even this lifelong New Yorker had to look them up: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2025/11/image-23-e1762383556898.png) @missladysalad via Instagram (screenshot Rhea Nayyar/*Hyperallergic*) But we’ve got to take a minute to give some props to all the losers of the night, starting with the *New York Post*, the poet laureate of the unhinged right. I mean, come *on:* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2025/11/screenshot-2025-11-05-at-5-49-31-pm.png) (@JPHilllllll via [X](https://x.com/JPHilllllll/status/1985910522034663602?ref=hyperallergic.com)) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2025/11/screenshot-2025-11-05-at-5-49-54-pm.png) (@bigdybbukenergy via [X](https://x.com/bigdybbukenergy/status/1985764664492376335?ref=hyperallergic.com)) And, of course, loser incarnate, Andrew Cuomo, roasted by a politician who actually won their election, no less: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2025/11/image-24.png) (@chiosse via Instagram; screenshot Rhea Nayyar/*Hyperallergic*) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2025/11/screenshot-2025-11-05-at-5-50-16-pm.png) (@youwouldntpost via [X](https://x.com/youwouldntpost/status/1985766519922663914?ref=hyperallergic.com)) We’ve got to give an honorable mention to Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa, because no New York City mayoral election would be complete without a guy who’s essentially a ready-made meme: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQmiwNSjpAX/?igsh=MWFwbTNoZmR4N3A3dw%3D%3D ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2025/11/screenshot-2025-11-05-at-6-02-32-pm.png) Say what you will — the guy is passionate. (@alex\_shephard via [X](https://x.com/alex%5Fshephard/status/1985897694553129321?ref=hyperallergic.com)) Speaking of readymade memes, a courtesy Eric Adams mention. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2025/11/image-25.png) I hate to say it, but maybe former mayor Eric Adams (god, that feels good to type) deserves just a sliver of credit. (@futurenomics via X) God, I love New York. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2025/11/screenshot-2025-11-05-at-5-50-42-pm.png) (@katefeetie via [X](https://x.com/katefeetie/status/1985901584799449452?ref=hyperallergic.com))