How this 'crying liberal' Iowan became a worldwide meme for those gloating over Trump's win
I’ve seen the face of the loser.
I’ve seen the face of dejected Hillary Clinton supporters everywhere.
I’ve seen the look of utter horror at the prospect of living at least four years under the presidency of Donald Trump.
That face has a name: Janna DeVylder.
Yes, DeVylder, 42, who grew up in Council Bluffs and now lives and works on the other side of the globe in Sydney, Australia, has become the international symbol of the inconsolable popular-vote winners of our presidential election. (Online she was zinged as the “poster child for the mentally insane Hillary snowflakes.”)
In other words, she has spent the last two months as one of the world's most popular political memes.
She’s the face of blue-Democrat America that saw what seemed like a sure claim to the White House slip away in the deep-red rural counties and the Electoral College.
DeVylder has lived a surreal, virtual double life as her meme of infinite varieties has spread far and wide across the internet.
I tried to get Reuters, the photo's owner, to let us publish the photo in print, to no avail. But just
Google “crying liberals” and you’ll see it. DeVylder’s face pops up probably as the very first image: She’s wearing cobalt blue eyeglasses, pearl earrings and a matching necklace and a homemade Hillary pin. She even purchased a secondhand gray pinstripe pantsuit just for the occasion. Oh, and you can't miss her festive red, white and blue top hat.
But the first thing you notice is her convulsed posture and anguished expression. Her shoulders droop forward, while her head is flung back. Her eyes are scrunched shut. Her mouth hangs open in a frown, and you can’t help but imagine hearing her pitiful moan.
The photo was snapped on Nov., 8, Election Day (although because of the time difference technically it already was the next day in Australia). DeVylder, as if you couldn't tell from her getup, had voted absentee for Clinton. She holds dual citizenship.
She and some friends attended an election viewing party at the University of Sydney. DeVylder was so excited that she took the day off work — made easier by the fact that she’s her own boss. She and her husband run
their own design firm with a third business partner.
DeVylder expected a low-key event. What she got was a teeming throng of hundreds of American expats and curious Aussies packed into a room with a giant video screen, CNN sponsorship and Trump supporters chanting, “Lock her up!” So she did the only sensible thing: She grabbed the free plastic hat offered at the door and dove headlong into the fray.
DeVylder's pantsuit and general look made her a magnet for multiple TV and radio interviews. But initially she didn't notice all the photographers who had staked out the crowd, including
Jason Reed of Reuters.
His was the perceptive eye that captured DeVylder’s reaction — not to the final result but merely to Trump's win of an early state. And like a dutiful news photographer, he quickly filed it for his editors.
Not more than 90 minutes later, as DeVylder still sat in the very same seat in Sydney, she received a message from her friend Matt back in Davenport, Ia.: I think I just saw your face come up on Yahoo News, he told her.
In a relative eye blink she had been zapped around the globe. And little did she know that that was only the beginning.
To be fair, Reed's original caption was rather innocuous, and didn't include DeVylder's name: “Supporters of U.S Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton react as a state is called in favour of her opponent, Republican candidate Donald Trump, during a watch party for the U.S. Presidential election, at the University of Sydney in Australia, November 9, 2016.”
Reed himself has shot photos in Iowa, but never has he had a photo reach so far, so fast.
“I was surprised to see the amount of interest in this image considering the sheer number of similar pictures being taken across the United States on that day,” he wrote to me in an email.
When the photo seeped into social media and the political blogosphere, it took on a life of its own. It seemed to reduce Trump's surprise victory to a single frame and face perfect for attracting schadenfreude.
Her "conservative friends in the Midwest," DeVylder said, "who visit different websites than I do, kept seeing it come up."
Some of the captions and headlines paired with DeVylder's face:
“When everyone gets a trophy ... you don’t know how to lose.”
“Best pics of distraught Hillary voters from last night as they sob and lay in fetal positions. Run to your safe spaces!!! Trump is president!”
“Classes canceled to allow college students to ‘cope’ with shock of Trump’s win” (DeVylder, a mom to two sons and two stepdaughters, is happy to pass for an undergrad.)
Conservative radio talk show host Laura Ingraham
tweeted DeVylder’s photo with the quip, “To think we had 18 year olds taking Omaha Beach, at Battle of Chosin, Ardennes ....”
To think we had 18 year olds taking Omaha Beach, at Battle of Chosin, Ardennes....
pic.twitter.com/vCfi5mmzrQ
— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle)
November 10, 2016
DeVylder, who was lured to Australia by a job and made a life there, may even end up on T-shirts and coffee mugs in Texas.
This is made all the funnier because she wasn’t crying in the photo. As she put it, she was just "a bit expressive."