There is an enormous amount of competition in the White House for “most memorable employee.” But sadly, the top non-president contender has just stepped aside. Exactly 181 days, 23 hours, and some change after Trump took the oath of office, White House press secretary Sean Spicer has officially resigned his post. As press secretary, Sean Spicer did … well, honestly, not a whole lot of good. But he did, through his weird love of cinnamon gum, his hatred of Dippin’ Dots, and his inability to pronounce some pretty basic words, worm his way directly into the heart of the internet. Let’s look back on all of the content Spicer provided:
That time he, indirectly, gave us all those rogue National Park accounts.
When the central account of the National Park Service tweeted some pictures of the small crowds at Donald Trump’s inauguration, the account — and all its subsidiary accounts — were placed under temporary gag by direct order of Trump. Sean Spicer insisted the White House had nothing to do with the shuttering of the accounts, but it was later revealed that was untrue. As a result, we got rogue accounts run by people claiming to be employees of NPS speaking out anonymously and, even better, actual NPS accounts, like the Badlands tweeting about climate control and Death Valley talking about Japanese internment during the 1940s.
His tweets. All of them.
During the early days of his time as press secretary, people mined Sean Spicer’s old tweets. There were some real gems, let me tell you. Spicer had tweeted, multiple times, about how Dippin’ Dots is, in fact, not the “ice cream of the future.” He also had it out for Daft Punk.
The gum thing.
Sean Spicer chews and swallows something like 35 pieces — “two and a half packs” — of cinnamon gum each day. Before noon. That’s weird, though Spicer said his doctor told him it’s totally safe.
“Alternative Facts”
A great way to hit the ground running is by actively lying to the American people on day one. Spicer stood before the press and insisted that the crowd at Trump’s inauguration was the largest in inaugural history. (This is a lie, and the photos speak for themselves.) His comments, in addition to Trump’s, would later inspire Kellyanne Conway’s now-infamous “alternative facts” line on Meet the Press.
That time he got confused by satire.
Spicer retweeted a video from the Onion entitled “Five Things to Know About Sean Spicer” saying “nailed it.” One of the five things was a description of his role as press secretary as “to provide the American public with robust and clearly articulated misinformation.” It’s truly unclear if Spicer actually watched the video.
When a woman yelled at him in an Apple Store.
Spicer was spotted in an Apple Store — apparently buying something in the Apple Watch family — when a woman approached him, calling his boss a fascist. He probably should have just sent an intern.
That time he forgot how to say “concentration camps.”
While discussing Bashar al-Assad reportedly using sarin gas to attack Syrian citizens, Spicer essentially rewrote history. “We didn’t use chemical weapons in World War II. Y’know, you had … someone who is despicable as Hitler who didn’t even sink to the, to the, to using chemical weapons.” (Hitler, obviously, did just that.) He later couldn’t remember what “concentration camps” were called, instead coming up with “Holocaust centers.”
When somebody found his Venmo.
When he confused Donald Trump and Ben Carson.
While tweeting what should have been an announcement about Ben Carson as the newly confirmed secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Spicer accidentally announced the role had gone to Donald Trump. He even tagged Trump’s account in the tweet. (Both Carson and Trump have Twitter handles that begin with “REAL.”) This mistake was later rectified.
That thing with the bushes. Or, um, being “among the bushes.”
After James Comey was fired from his role as FBI director, the Washington Post reported that Spicer spent time talking to reporters in “near darkness” after spending “several minutes hidden in the bushes.” Later, the Post would update their story to clarify that Spicer had been “among” the bushes, rather than in them.
The time he joked about Russian salad dressing.
“If the president put Russian salad dressing on his salad tonight somehow that’s a Russia connection,” Spicer told American Urban Radio Networks’ Washington bureau chief April Ryan during a press briefing. Cue the salad-dressing memes.
The time he didn’t take any questions and a choir of reporters yelled his name at an empty podium.
Farewell, Sean. We, the viral-content bloggers of the world, miss you already.
