Bernie Sanders cannot go a day without becoming a meme.
The Vermont senator has another meme under his belt. Sanders donned a jacket from Burton Snowboards, a Vermont-based clothing company, with a pair of now-famous mittens made by a Vermont school teacher, Jen Ellis.
Within a few minutes, Sanders trended on Twitter while the inauguration went on. Soon every account or brand had its own version of Sanders sitting in a fold-up chair. There were no limits to where Bernie could be photoshopped into. From movies, concerts, famous historical events, other memes and the moon, Chairman Bernie was there. You could not escape the meme after Biden’s inauguration. 
“I was just sitting there, trying to keep warm and trying to pay attention to what was going on,” Sanders said when asked on the Seth Meyers show about being aware of becoming a meme. 
A site created by Nick Sawhney allowed internet users to place Bernie anywhere. A total of 9,849,938 memes were created before the site was archived due to API costs.
The biggest star within the meme was the mittens. Jen Ellis made the pair five years ago as a gift. He wore them while campaigning for his presidential campaign in 2020. 
Ellis made them from “reprised wool sweaters and lined with fleece made from recycled plastic bottles.” After the viral meme, her inbox flooded with requests for mittens. Ellis didn’t expect it and is not an active social media user. She had to figure out how to log in again to announce on Twitter that she didn’t have any mittens in stock.
Unfortunately, Ellis doesn’t make mittens that often anymore and won’t quit her day job. Making mittens is her side hustle and hobby.
“There’s no possible way I could make 6,000 pairs of mittens, and every time I go into my email, another several hundred people have emailed me,” Ellis told The Jewish Insider in an interview.
Even though she’s not making mittens, Ellis is helping raise money by auctioning off a few pairs. On Jan. 24, she tweeted a picture of three pairs of mittens ready for auction. Proceeds will go to Outright Vermont, a non-profit organization for LGBTQ+ youth and Passion 4 Paws Vermont, a foster-based dog rescue organization. 
Ellis is working on producing a sock inspired by Bernie’s mittens. 100% of the proceeds will go to the Vermont Foodbank.
Meanwhile, the viral meme also sparked inspiration in a Corpus Christi native, Tobey King. King’s Bernie crochet doll went viral, causing the eBay bidding price to increase from 99 cents to $20,300. The proceeds will go to Meals on Wheels America. 
The pattern can be found on Tobey Time Crochet on Etsy for $5.
Meanwhile, the Bernie Campaign Store released a Chairman Sanders collection. The collection sold out within 30 minutes. The proceeds will go to various charities in Vermont, such as Meals on Wheels, senior centers in Vermont, Vermont community action agencies and more. 
According to the Associated Press, the meme helped raised $1.8 million in five days for organizations in the state of Vermont.
While Twitter users were creating memes, artists and graphic designers made merchandise surrounding the meme. One quick search on Etsy leads to pages of stickers, hoodies, t-shirts, and even boxers. 
“Jane and I were amazed by all the creativity shown by so many people over the last week, and we’re glad we can use my internet fame to help Vermonters in need,” Sanders said in a written statement. “But even this amount of money is no substitute for action by Congress, and I will be doing everything I can in Washington to make sure working people in Vermont and across the country get the relief they need in the middle of the worst crisis we’ve faced since the Great Depression.”