I get a kick out of how visual jokes spread, and with the Bongbong Marcos caricature it wasn’t one lone artist so much as a tidal wave of creators who echoed and amplified each other. During the 2016 and especially the 2022
Election cycles, editorial cartoonists in mainstream papers and their digital versions sketched exaggerated features that meme-makers then remixed. Newspaper cartoonists gave the caricature a stamp of legitimacy while Facebook pages, Twitter/X threads, and Instagram illustrators took those templates and ran wild, adding captions, stickers, and animated loops.
Beyond newspapers and big socials, independent illustrators, protest artists, zine-makers, and young designers in college groups also played huge roles. They translated political critique into stickers, posters, and shareable images that fitted perfectly into comment threads. The combined effect was a collage of styles — classic editorial linework, bold webcomic shapes, and crude phone-made memes — and that mixture is what made the caricature feel everywhere. I still chuckle at how a handful of brush strokes turned into a national meme, and it fascinates me how communities can make an image stick.