“Covfefe” – a harmless typo or a calculated distraction?

2nd June 2017

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Donald Trump’s administration is rapidly becoming defined by the president’s late-night tweeting. His messages usually spark the internet into action as people race to decipher the true meaning behind his words.

Just after midnight on 31 May, the president tweeted: “Despite the constant negative press covfefe.” And that was it. No context, no explanation.

The tweet spread like digital wildfire over the next 24 hours as the internet grappled with its significance and flirted with what it could mean. And of course there were memes. Lots of memes.

Meanwhile at Pulsar, we decided to track the conversation to see how it would evolve.

There was a huge spike in posts and engagements immediately after Trump tweeted his cryptic message at 12:06am. The discussion then fell dramatically before Trump offered a challenge at 6:09am: “Who can figure out the true meaning of "covfefe" ??? Enjoy!”– and the internet responded with gusto.



 
So what was the tone of the conversation? The first few hours were dominated by memes – predominantly, who could put the word “covfefe” into the funniest context.

There was Trump as “Salt Bae” seasoning meat with a dash of “covfefe”.

 

There was the announcement of a New York club called Covfefe with “Russian entanglements, spray tans, creepy handshakes, surprise trade wars”.

And there was a hilariously bizarre interaction between two Twitter accounts – Covfefe the Strong and The Wizard Covfefe – who battled it out over who had been summoned by Trump.

 

But the tweet with the most engagements throughout the day was from a rogue Twitter account claiming to be the RC Cola brand (which has since been suspended).


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It was also more pointed in its criticism of Trump – describing covfefe as “incompetence” flavoured cola – which marked a change in tone of the conversation.

While some people continued to engage with witty memes, others had already begun to consider the significance of the US President writing nonsensical tweets in the middle of the night.

Two of the most re-tweeted messages were about Trump’s mental stability and his ability to lead the country.

Although the conversation started on Twitter, it evolved on other channels. Thoughts on the true meaning and correct pronunciation of covfefe continued to circulate on Twitter, but on Tumblr the discussion started to shift.

It gradually dawned on people that this incompetent gaffe was in fact a distraction tactic, helpfully on the day that Trump had reportedly decided to pull the US out of the Paris Climate Agreement. Any humour had instead turned to anger and heated keywords began to appear in connection with 'covfefe'.

Top topics on Twitter

Top Tweets

Top topics on Tumblr

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Talk of “notmypresident” and “resist” emerged on Tumblr as Reuters first broke the news that Trump intended to pull out of the global pact to fight climate change.

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Key influencers driving the most engagements in the covfefe discussion include comedian Kristina Wong, the political strategist Andrea Dubé, conservative commentator Sarah Rumpf, and New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow whose witty tweets helped fuel the conversation.

Comedian Zach Braff also drove considerable engagement by jumping in with a string of covfefe-inspired memes demonstrating that people were more interested at laughing at Trump's late-night lexicon than worrying about the mental stability of the US President or his ability to distract from important issues.

And for a little extra insight, we've delved into who is talking about covfefe on Facebook...

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Was covfefe a simple typo or sinister misdirection carefully orchestrated by the President?

Or was it simply a mistake that, thanks to a lighter tone than some of his previous messages, and his challenge to discover the true meaning of the word, showed he has a sense of humour and amused the internet.

Either way, the internet decided it was an old topic as talk of covfefe dwindled away after just 24 hours, to be quickly replaced by talk of the Paris Agreement.

So, was 'covfefe' some much needed comic relief to the months of scandals that have so far characterised Trump’s White House, or was it something altogether more sinisterly distracting?

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