What is Ed Scarrys Ocasio Cortez Coat Tweet?

It is a November 15th, 2018 tweet by Washington Examiner columnist Eddie Scarry that shared a candid photo of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and implied her outfit contradicted her comments about not being able to afford a D.C. apartment.

Where did Ed Scarrys Ocasio Cortez Coat Tweet come from?

The tweet grew out of a conservative media pushback against a New York Times interview in which Ocasio-Cortez discussed the three-month gap before her congressional salary began.

What does Ed Scarrys Ocasio Cortez Coat Tweet mean?

It became shorthand for a self-owning political tweet, mocked both for its clothes-shaming premise and for its lopsided ratio of over 20,000 replies to only a few hundred retweets.

How do you use Ed Scarrys Ocasio Cortez Coat Tweet?

People typically paste Scarry's caption onto an image of an obviously wealthy or absurd subject, such as the IKEA Monkey or Carmelo Anthony, to mock the original argument.

Is Ed Scarrys Ocasio Cortez Coat Tweet still popular?

The original tweet was deleted by Scarry, but it is still cited as a classic early Twitter ratio and is periodically resurfaced whenever Ocasio-Cortez's clothing draws political attention.

Ed Scarrys Ocasio Cortez Coat Tweet

2018viral tweetclassic

Published August 15, 2026

Ed Scarry's Ocasio-Cortez Coat Tweet is a November 2018 tweet by Washington Examiner columnist Eddie Scarry that showed a candid from-behind photo of newly elected congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, implying her outfit disproved her claims of financial hardship. The tweet was widely mocked, turned into a copypasta, and became famous for its lopsided reply-to-like ratio before Scarry deleted it.

backfire memes copypasta memes political satire memes twitter memes 2018 memes

Overview

Ed Scarry's Ocasio-Cortez Coat Tweet refers to a November 15th, 2018 post by Washington Examiner conservative columnist Eddie Scarry, who shared a candid from-behind photo of freshly elected New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez walking through the Capitol3. The caption suggested her clothing did not look like that of someone who could not afford a Washington D.C. apartment, echoing a conservative talking point about her earlier interviews1.

The tweet backfired instantly. Twitter users called it invasive and stalker-ish, turned Scarry's caption into a copypasta paired with absurd images, and mocked the post's ratio of 20,609 replies against just 397 retweets and 1,498 likes3. Scarry later deleted the tweet and claimed he was trying to compliment her wardrobe3.

Gallery

Origin & Background

Platform

Twitter

Creator

Eddie Scarry

Date

2018

The background is a New York Times interview in which Ocasio-Cortez said she could not afford a D.C. apartment during the three-month gap before her $174,000 congressional salary kicked in, noting the city's median rent of about $2,7001. Conservative outlets pushed back, pointing to her disclosed savings of between $15,001 and $50,000 as evidence she could cover the transition2.

On November 15th, 2018, Eddie Scarry, a columnist at the Washington Examiner, posted the candid Capitol hallway photo of Ocasio-Cortez with a caption riffing on that conservative framing about her wardrobe and finances3.

How It Spread

Backlash arrived within hours. The Root ran a piece calling the photo stalker-ish and dismissing the clothes-shaming angle as bizarre coverage of a freshman lawmaker3. Journalists and ordinary users piled into the replies, and even right-leaning figure Mike Cernovich publicly told Scarry to delete the post3.

The tweet quickly became a copypasta template. User @xtop paired Scarry's caption with a photo of the IKEA Monkey and picked up over 600 retweets and 3,800 likes, while @nicjbae swapped in NBA player Carmelo Anthony for more than 560 retweets and 4,000 likes3. User @jmkris photoshopped Scarry's face and the tweet's engagement numbers onto the famous Wilt Chamberlain 100-point photo, framing the ratio as an all-time record bad tweet3.

Scarry eventually deleted the post and defended himself by claiming the tweet had been intended as a compliment3. Coverage of the incident kept circulating on political Twitter for weeks, and the tweet is still referenced as one of the early canonical examples of a viral Twitter ratio tied to Ocasio-Cortez's rise1.

How to Use This Meme

The copypasta format typically pairs Scarry's original caption, which questioned whether the subject really looked like someone struggling financially, with a photo of an obviously wealthy, absurd, or nonhuman subject. Common conventions include swapping in celebrities, cartoon characters, or animals such as the IKEA Monkey, so the joke lands through the mismatch between Scarry's earnest framing and a ridiculous image3.