Brands going viral for the right – and wrong – reasons is nothing new in the social media world, but the White House joining in with its own bleak remix is surely a first.
The Jet2 meme began innocently enough – it’s a sly, self-deprecating British in-joke. TikTok users took the airline and operator’s relentlessly cheery jingle, Jess Glynne’s Hold My Hand, and started laying it over footage of holiday disasters – a woman nearly drowning in waist-high water at a Tenerife water park, a man soaked by rain on a sunlounger, the small indignities of budget travel gone sideways.
The now-iconic line, “Nothing beats a Jet2 holiday”, became social media code for plans gone hilariously wrong, embraced for its irony and low-cost charm.
Some 1.3 million videos later and counting, the trend has gone fully viral. Enter then the Trump administration, which crashed the meme with all the subtlety of a budget airline landing in a crosswind.
“When ICE [US Immigration and Customs Enforcement] books you a one-way Jet2 holiday to deportation,” read the White House’s effort, complete with emoji and chirpy soundtrack, turning deportee flights into a joke.
https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/1950323473215115720
Crass, callous and proudly indifferent to the sensitivities it casually memes, the post reflects the Trump administration’s long-standing knack for dressing cruelty in viral formats.
Here, the machinery of government borrows the language of teen humour to mock the lives it uproots, and somehow thinks it’s being clever.
Reclaiming the narrative?
It’s also dragged Jet2 into a political firestorm not of its own making. Better known for package holidays than geopolitics, it’s unlikely Jet2 would welcome this kind of attention.
And yet, there it was – its name and branding co-opted to soften the optics of a government policy rooted in displacement and division.
So what should a brand do when it becomes an unwilling symbol in a narrative it never endorsed?
For Jet2, it raises the question of how, or whether, to respond. They could do nothing and allow the moment to vanish with the next viral wave.
They could go legal, although the optics of suing a government over a meme may be more trouble than it’s worth.
Or they could do what British brands do best: lean into the situation. A wink of a post along the lines of, “Here’s one reason to stay in Europe this summer”, would acknowledge the absurdity without fanning the flames.
In the strange, shape-shifting world of meme culture, sometimes the only way to reclaim the narrative is to make the better joke.
This incident is a stark reminder that in the meme economy, brand narratives can be hijacked, reframed and thrown into ideological battlegrounds – whether they belong there or not.
And the line between online irony and real-world consequence is narrower than ever.
Jet2 responded to a request for comment by TTG 24 hours after the original story about the White House’s post was published.
It said: “Our branding has become something of a viral phenomenon this summer and we are pleased to see how many people have used it in good humour. This has put a smile on many people’s faces, just like our holidays do.
"We are of course aware of a post from the White House social media account. This is not endorsed by us in any way, and we are very disappointed to see our brand being used to promote government policy such as this.”
Marta Safin is a social media strategist who has worked with global travel brands for 15 years, helping them develop their marketing efforts to drive brand awareness and foster customer loyalty. She’s a member of the Llama collective of travel marketing specialists, helping brands all over the world to sharpen their marketing.
