About
Hilary Clinton’s New York Times Magazine Cover, also known as “Planet Hillary,” refers to a magazine cover featuring a composite image of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s face superimposed on to the surface of a planet. Following its unveiling in late January 2014, the cover art quickly inspired a photoshop meme based on the exploitable image of “Planet Hilary.”
Origin
On January 23rd, 2014, New York Times Magazine editor David Joachim tweeted the cover for its upcoming January 26th issue, featuring Hillary Clinton’s face on the surface of a planet in space. Less than 15 minutes later, Twitter user Luke O’Neil replied to Joachim’s tweet joking that the Clinton planet looked like a “sentient space testicle.”
Hillary Rodham Clinton, as you've never seen her, on the cover of this Sunday's NYT Magazine pic.twitter.com/QIsqibZaq5
— David Joachim, NYT (@davidjoachim) January 23, 2014
Spread
The same day on January 23rd, 2014, several other Twitter users began posting photoshopped images featuring cutouts of the Clinton planet edited into other base images of various contexts. At 11:44 a.m. (ET), the design and multimedia manager for GLAAD Chris Carlon tweeted a photoshopped picture of a nude Miley Cyrus riding the Clinton planet like a wrecking ball.
Miley and Hillary on NYT Mag cover. how weird pic.twitter.com/OxsGxVMUtK
— Chris Carlon (@christofear) January 23, 2014
Less than two hours later, the director of social media for Fluency Media tweeted a photoshopped cover of the children’s book Goodnight Moon with “Planet Hilary” superimposed in the window.
i'm sorry
darth</a> i couldn't wait <a href="http://t.co/tLtBUflkod">pic.twitter.com/tLtBUflkod</a></p>— lindsay blackwell (linguangst) January 23, 2014
Also on January 23rd, The 6th Floor New York Times[5] blog published an article about the backstory behind the magazine cover, explaining that “Planet Hilary” was inspired by the man-on-the-moon from the 1902 silent film Le Voyage Dans la Lune. Throughout the day, several news sites highlighted notable examples of the photoshop meme, including The Daily Dot,[1]The Wire,[2] Jezebel[4] and BuzzFeed.[3]
Notable Examples
Search Interest
External References
[1]The Daily Dot – Heres what the Internet did with the NYT Magazines Planet Hillary Cover
[2]The Wire – Exhausting the Planet Hillary Meme
[3]BuzzFeed – Things That the Planet Hillary
[4]Jezebel – This New York Times Magazine Cover of Hillary Clinton is Interesting
[5]New York Times – How Our Hillary Clinton Cover Came About