Please Clap

2016catchphraseclassic

Published September 22, 2026

On February 2, 2016, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush finished a line in a New Hampshire stump speech, waited for applause that never came, and asked the crowd, "Please clap"3. Mashable flagged it as the potential iconic moment of his 2016 campaign1, and the two-word plea spawned image macros that outlived his failed run.

political satire memescatchphrase memescringe memespresidential memesunwilling celebrity memes

Overview

Please Clap works as both a two-word catchphrase and an image macro pulled from the same short C-SPAN clip of Jeb Bush pausing for applause that never came3. In caption form, it gets attached to any post about desperate applause fishing, whether from politicians, brands, or awkward public speakers. As an image macro, it pairs a screenshot of Bush's pained face with variations that swap the plea for whatever the speaker is quietly begging for1.

The tone shifted over time. In early 2016 the posts were straight mockery of Bush's flagging candidacy2. After Donald Trump's 2016 election win, the same footage came back as part of ironic Jeb Bush fan content, where users treated the plea as sincere and sympathetic rather than cringeworthy3. That flip kept the clip in rotation as a reaction any time a public figure hit a similar dead moment.

Origin & Background

Platform
C-SPAN campaign coverage (YouTube spread)
Creator
Jeb Bush; meme creator Unknown
Date
2016

On February 2, 2016, Bush spoke to a New Hampshire crowd ahead of the state's primary1. He wrapped a passage about the kind of commander in chief he would be on military and foreign policy, waited for the applause he expected, then said, "Please clap"3. The C-SPAN clip circulated on YouTube the same day and started getting shared on Twitter within hours4.

Bush was not the meme's creator so much as its unwilling subject. The moment came from a live campaign event; the meme formats around it were built afterward by anonymous Twitter and Reddit users editing screenshots from the clip3.

How It Spread

How to Use This Meme

Please Clap is typically used two ways. As a caption, users drop the two words under any video or screenshot of someone visibly hoping for approval, from a politician's flat rally line to a brand tweet with no engagement. As an image macro, the common convention is a still of Bush's tight-lipped face captioned with a variation on the plea, often swapping "clap" for another response the poster is fishing for.

Frequently Asked Questions