Covfefe

2017catchphraseclassic

Covfefe is the garbled word President Donald Trump tweeted just after midnight on May 31, 2017, which stopped mid-sentence and stayed live for roughly six hours. The apparent typo of 'coverage' turned into a global trending hashtag, spawned jokes across Twitter and Reddit, and even inspired a proposed act of Congress.

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Overview

Covfefe is a mangled version of the word 'coverage' that President Donald Trump tweeted at 12:06 a.m. Eastern time on May 31, 2017. The tweet read 'Despite the constant negative press covfefe' and stopped mid-thought, leaving readers to guess what he meant to say 1. Because the post stayed live for roughly six hours before being deleted, the internet had all night to turn a stray typo into a running joke 2.

The Associated Press wrote covfefe as 'cuv-fey-fey' and called it 'a sure sign that President Donald Trump has regained control of his Twitter account' after a week of unusually restrained posts from his foreign trip 3. By morning, covfefe was a hashtag, a punchline, a license plate order form, and the seed of a proposed federal law about preserving presidential social media 4.

How It Spread

Twitter reacted almost instantly. Comedian Jimmy Kimmel tweeted that 'what makes me saddest is that I know I'll never write anything funnier than #covfefe', while New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow riffed on the word as an imaginary seasoning sprinkled onto a dish 2. NPR compared the mystery to Citizen Kane's 'Rosebud' as reporters, comedians, and word nerds all tried to guess what Trump had been reaching for 2. Merriam-Webster's dictionary account posted a cheeky reply that racked up more than 221,000 likes over the following year, and Oxford Dictionaries named covfefe its 'coinage of the day' with a definition of pure question marks 4.

Reddit picked up the joke overnight. Dozens of covfefe posts hit /r/MemeEconomy by morning, with a parody of the 'Trump's First Order of Business' template by user simgasm passing 23,000 upvotes, and a dedicated /r/covfefe subreddit was created the same day 4. Popular Twitter jokes played on words that vaguely rhymed with covfefe, from 'coffee' to 'cocaine' voiced by Dave Chappelle's Tyrone Biggums character, and CNN, NPR, and the Associated Press all covered the tweet within hours 3.

The joke jumped off screens fast. By June 2, 2017, CNN reported that drivers in at least 21 states had already ordered COVFEFE personalized license plates 5. Nebraskan Evan Milton grabbed his state's plate roughly four hours after the original tweet, paying forty dollars at the DMV website after telling reporters he 'counts the letters of every garbage meme that comes through' 6. California attorney Craig Cooper's plate photo, posted by his daughter, pulled in more than 20,000 retweets and 96,000 likes on its own 5.

How to Use This Meme

Using covfefe typically means dropping the word into any context that calls for a shrug at a typo, a garbled statement, or an incoherent late-night post. Common conventions include swapping it in for 'coverage' or 'coffee', treating it as a mock-mystical term whose real meaning is known only to the tweeter, or reaching for it as shorthand whenever a public figure fumbles a message on social media 1. Because Trump never explained it, the joke works best when the word is left hanging, exactly the way the original tweet did 2.

Cultural Impact

Politicians got in on the joke too. On June 12, 2017, Democratic Representative Mike Quigley of Illinois introduced the COVFEFE Act, formally the Communications Over Various Feeds Electronically For Engagement Act, which would have amended the Presidential Records Act to require the National Archives to preserve every presidential social media post 4. The pitch itself was a wink at the president, but it also raised a real question about whether deleted tweets from a sitting president counted as federal records.

Mainstream coverage stretched far past the meme sites. CNN, NPR, the Associated Press, and The New York Times all filed stories within a day, and the tweet became a case study in how one stray word from the White House could dominate a full news cycle 3. Even Urban Dictionary got mythical about it, with a top entry casting covfefe as 'the mighty and terrible god of internet typos' whose prophet is Pepe 7.

Frequently Asked Questions

Covfefe

2017catchphraseclassic

Covfefe is the garbled word President Donald Trump tweeted just after midnight on May 31, 2017, which stopped mid-sentence and stayed live for roughly six hours. The apparent typo of 'coverage' turned into a global trending hashtag, spawned jokes across Twitter and Reddit, and even inspired a proposed act of Congress.

trump memes misspelling memes twitter memes political satire memes 2017 memes

Overview

Covfefe is a mangled version of the word 'coverage' that President Donald Trump tweeted at 12:06 a.m. Eastern time on May 31, 2017. The tweet read 'Despite the constant negative press covfefe' and stopped mid-thought, leaving readers to guess what he meant to say 1. Because the post stayed live for roughly six hours before being deleted, the internet had all night to turn a stray typo into a running joke 2.

The Associated Press wrote covfefe as 'cuv-fey-fey' and called it 'a sure sign that President Donald Trump has regained control of his Twitter account' after a week of unusually restrained posts from his foreign trip 3. By morning, covfefe was a hashtag, a punchline, a license plate order form, and the seed of a proposed federal law about preserving presidential social media 4.

How It Spread

Twitter reacted almost instantly. Comedian Jimmy Kimmel tweeted that 'what makes me saddest is that I know I'll never write anything funnier than #covfefe', while New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow riffed on the word as an imaginary seasoning sprinkled onto a dish 2. NPR compared the mystery to Citizen Kane's 'Rosebud' as reporters, comedians, and word nerds all tried to guess what Trump had been reaching for 2. Merriam-Webster's dictionary account posted a cheeky reply that racked up more than 221,000 likes over the following year, and Oxford Dictionaries named covfefe its 'coinage of the day' with a definition of pure question marks 4.

Reddit picked up the joke overnight. Dozens of covfefe posts hit /r/MemeEconomy by morning, with a parody of the 'Trump's First Order of Business' template by user simgasm passing 23,000 upvotes, and a dedicated /r/covfefe subreddit was created the same day 4. Popular Twitter jokes played on words that vaguely rhymed with covfefe, from 'coffee' to 'cocaine' voiced by Dave Chappelle's Tyrone Biggums character, and CNN, NPR, and the Associated Press all covered the tweet within hours 3.

The joke jumped off screens fast. By June 2, 2017, CNN reported that drivers in at least 21 states had already ordered COVFEFE personalized license plates 5. Nebraskan Evan Milton grabbed his state's plate roughly four hours after the original tweet, paying forty dollars at the DMV website after telling reporters he 'counts the letters of every garbage meme that comes through' 6. California attorney Craig Cooper's plate photo, posted by his daughter, pulled in more than 20,000 retweets and 96,000 likes on its own 5.

How to Use This Meme

Using covfefe typically means dropping the word into any context that calls for a shrug at a typo, a garbled statement, or an incoherent late-night post. Common conventions include swapping it in for 'coverage' or 'coffee', treating it as a mock-mystical term whose real meaning is known only to the tweeter, or reaching for it as shorthand whenever a public figure fumbles a message on social media 1. Because Trump never explained it, the joke works best when the word is left hanging, exactly the way the original tweet did 2.

Cultural Impact

Politicians got in on the joke too. On June 12, 2017, Democratic Representative Mike Quigley of Illinois introduced the COVFEFE Act, formally the Communications Over Various Feeds Electronically For Engagement Act, which would have amended the Presidential Records Act to require the National Archives to preserve every presidential social media post 4. The pitch itself was a wink at the president, but it also raised a real question about whether deleted tweets from a sitting president counted as federal records.

Mainstream coverage stretched far past the meme sites. CNN, NPR, the Associated Press, and The New York Times all filed stories within a day, and the tweet became a case study in how one stray word from the White House could dominate a full news cycle 3. Even Urban Dictionary got mythical about it, with a top entry casting covfefe as 'the mighty and terrible god of internet typos' whose prophet is Pepe 7.

Frequently Asked Questions