The "Leopards Ate My Face" Party Has Been a Political Parody for a Decade

Politics in the age of the internet has drifted further and further into the land of memes and jokes, so much so that it can be hard to follow all of the different things people refer to. Following the reelection of Donald Trump to a second term as president, many are now pointing to the "Leopards Ate My Face" party, which first emerged back in 2015.

While some people remember the meme from that era, others are confused by the references to it. Here's what we know about it.

The "leopards ate my face" meme refers to voters who come to regret their votes after they find themselves personally affected by the policies of the person they voted for. Notably, the joke is that the politics of that person were always clear, and the people who voted for them simply refused to believe them.

It all started with a tweet that was first posted in 2015: "'I never thought leopards would eat MY face,' sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party."

That tweet was posted by @cavalorn and became a common reference point during the first Trump administration and Brexit, which happened a few months earlier.

In 2017, a subreddit called r/LeopardsAteMyFace launched and was immediately filled with examples of voters who had voted for either Trump or Brexit and had come to regret their choices because of the policies that they enacted.

The entire enterprise is founded at least in part on schadenfreude, which is taking pleasure in the pain of others, especially when you feel like they deserve it.

Of course, it's not clear whether the people actually experiencing the consequences of their votes connect that decision to the policy outcome that they're now dealing with, which may be one of the reasons Donald Trump earned a second term.

If you believe the formulation of the joke, then it might be slightly disconcerting to you to consider that Donald Trump was elected to a second term as president. It's possible, then, that people don't mind having their faces eaten, or they never connected that consequence to their vote, and in fact might have blamed Democrats for those policy consequences.

It's also possible, though, that that formulation was always a little too neat and tidy, and that voters vote for a whole range of issues, and are often more OK with the consequences of their votes than we might assume. All those people who believe that voters are falling for a trap should understand that voters of all stripes have agency over their own choices.

They voted for Donald Trump either because they don't think he'll really eat their face, don't care if he does or not, or actually want him to. Whatever their reasons might be, it's clear that this simple formulation doesn't get at all of the motivations behind a Trump supporter's vote.