There was a time that having the meme of Bernie Sanders bundled up as your background on Zoom would be totally acceptable. A serious HR meeting in 2022 is not that time.
TikTok creator @venusluna069 shared a video with now 85,000 views of what happened when she couldn’t get Sanders, perhaps America’s most famous democratic socialist, out of her background.
The video begins with overlaid texts on a video of her face looking horrified.
“Y’all I just embarrassed myself,” she wrote.
“I’m in a serious meeting with HR to reporter one of my co-workers,” she continued, showing a video of the Zoom meeting going on. “I haven’t used my Zoom account since I graduated college last year. Look who my background is…”
She pans up to reveal her Zoom square with a little Bernie Sanders bundled up wearing a mask in the corner of her bedroom.
She goes on to explain she couldn’t figure out how to change it. Commenters are glad she didn’t.
“He got your back,” one person writes on the video.
“Girl you brought a witness?” another person joked.
@venusluna069 captioned the whole debacle, “I hope the person at HR doesn’t report me.”
“HR was probably like how sweet, her grandpa is back there,” another person joked.
Jokes aside, the creator’s comments were full of support for her going to HR to address a co-worker.
“You shouldn’t be embarrassed, hopefully HR took your report and your doing good. No one should go through that specially at work,” one person wrote.
“You ALWAYS have the RIGHT to a safe workplace and I’m proud of you for speaking up to get that,” another added.
The meme itself is from Inauguration Day, when Sanders famously wore fan-made mittens made from repurposed wool sweaters and lined with fleece made from recycled plastic bottles.
We reached out to @venusluna069 via TikTok comment for this story.