Bill Gates’ Divorce | Know Your Meme

Notable Developments

The news of Gates’ divorce sparked a number of reactions on Twitter that day, some critical of Gates and making connections to related Coronavirus conspiracy theories (example shown below, left) while others made jokes about the divorce (example shown below, right).

On that day, Twitter user @RyanShocket posted, “Bill Gates’ wife trying out her new Mac,” along with a GIF of someone using a Mac computer, Microsoft’s competitor, garnering over 44,700 likes and 5,000 retweets in two days (shown below).

Bill Gates’ wife trying out her new Mac pic.twitter.com/E7FpEpwZSN

— Ryan Schocket (@RyanSchocket) May 3, 2021

The most common joke about Bill Gates’ divorce sees users implying they want to seduce him for his money. For example, On May 4th, Twitter user @iresimpsonsfan posted, “Me on hearing Bill Gates is single” along with an image of Homer Simpson in a wedding dress, garnering over 1,900 likes and 160 retweets in a day (shown below).

Later that day, Twitter user @JomiAdeniran made a post working all of the Microsoft Office products into a sentence about the divorce along with an image of rapper Future texting, garnering over 100,000 likes and 22,800 retweets in a day (shown below).

On that date, Redditor u/adequatesenseofself posted to /r/AskReddit, “So, what’s your plan for seducing Bill Gates?” garnering over 83,000 upvotes, 400 Reddit awards, and 5,500 comments joking about how users might seduce Bill (examples shown below, left and right).

On the same day, HITC and The Sun posted collections of Bill Gates divorce memes. Redditor u/dinnaehuv1 posted an image macro to /r/dankmemes referencing May the Fourth and the divorce in a pun, garnering over 26,500 upvotes in a day (shown below, left). On the same date, Redditor u/Mwuaha posted a meme to /r/memes implying Bill should get with the Queen, garnering over 34,700 upvotes in 16 hours (shown below, right).