“Thanks for all the interest in Bernie’s gloves!” Jen Ellis I wrote on twitter. “I’m so flattered that Bernie used them for the opening. Unfortunately, I don’t have any gloves for sale anymore. There are many great craftsmen at ETSY who make them.”
A few years ago, Ellis, who teaches second grade, gave the Vermont senator the hand-printed “smittens” – part gloves, part sweater – in the election campaign. But she didn’t expect him to start using them for important events like the opening. The gloves are made from reused wool sweaters and lined with wool made from recycled plastic bottles, she said in a tweet last year.
The image is also being sold on T-shirts, mugs and as a $ 25 bobble head. Some sellers on Etsy are already advertising “Bernie-inspired” gloves. Last year, online marketers profited on the spot from former Vice President Mike Pence during the debate against Kamala Harris. Biden’s campaign sold more than 35,000 fly swatters under the slogan “truth about flies”, a play on the slogan for the “truth about lies” campaign.
Ellis could not be reached for comment, but she told the Jewish Insider that “there is no way I can make 6,000 pairs of gloves, and every time I read my email, hundreds more people send me emails.”
“I hate to disappoint people, but the gloves are unique and unique, and sometimes in this world, you just don’t get everything you want,” she told the news site.
The virility and lightness of Bernie’s meme is reminiscent of the internet’s most carefree days. As a Twitter user captured, “Bernie Sanders’ memes and photoshops are what the world needs now.”
This is not the first time that the gloves are in the spotlight. Last year, Sanders used them at the Women’s March in Portsmouth, New Hampshire; some call the gloves “big gloves” and a dedicated Twitter account, @BerniesMittens, was born. At the time, Ellis said she was “humbled by the support” and “what started out as a simple act of kindness more than 2 years ago, has grown to become something beyond my imagination”.
She added, “This glove frenzy is really distracting me from making my mid-year newsletters.”
Inside a statement for CNN on Thursday, Sanders said this week’s meme “makes people aware that we make good gloves in Vermont. … We have some good coats too.”