Seriously, was Lori Lightfoot funny? A look back at the memeing of the Chicago mayor
CHICAGO — Someday, in the distant future, when you think back on the single mayoral term of Lori Lightfoot, when the name comes up and you hadn’t heard it much lately, what do you think you’ll remember? Any specific image? Or something closer to a mood? Set aside feelings of heartbreak, betrayal, admiration, animosity.
Just form an image in your head.
My brain goes straight to those lighthearted Lori Lightfoot stay-at-home memes that spread virally in the early days of the pandemic. But it’s nudged out by a different image: the Census Cowboy.
Who remembers the Census Cowboy? (Anyone?)
Mayor Lightfoot introduced him at a news conference during the summer of 2020. He was created to encourage Chicagoans to fill out their census forms. It was not the stupidest idea ever: You see a cowboy riding a horse through your neighborhood, you wonder what’s going on, then you slap your forehead: “Oh! I need to fill out my census!”
Makes total sense.
The Census Cowboy was introduced on a horse. He trotted out to Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” waving a “Census 2020″ flag. His name was Adam Hollingsworth, aka the who went viral himself riding into ; last year he to animal cruelty and received a year in jail. But back in 2020, now enshrined on YouTube and , the mayor looks all in, leaning into the silliness of the initiative, a clear attempt to make something so incongruous, it
