Skip to main content

Mike Pence’s fly has already amassed 90,000 followers on Twitter

A fly that landed on Mike Pence’s head during Wednesday night’s vice presidential debate has already amassed 90,000 followers on Twitter.

Recommended Videos

The six-legged insect made an impromptu appearance on Pence’s silver-white hair toward the end of the debate with Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Kamala Harris, and stayed there for a full two minutes.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

Sure enough, a short while later, a Twitter account showed up with the name “Mike Pence’s Fly.”

Within just a couple of hours, and with only a handful of silly posts to its name, the account was heading swiftly toward its first 100,000 followers — a figure many human Twitter users will be eyeing with envy.

https://twitter.com/MikePenceFly___/status/1314064378799349762

Although plenty of serious analysis of the political showdown could of course be found across all of the major social media platforms on Wednesday night, the fact that Twitter’s top 10 trending topics suddenly included “flies,” “TheFly,” “FLY2020,” and even “flygate,” may have offered a clue as to what many viewers felt about the quality of the debate.

The unexpected insect event easily ended up generating the most, ahem, buzz of the entire evening, unleashing a torrent of creativity on the internet that included an array of amusing memes, GIFs, and quips. And no doubt Jeff Goldblum is already dusting off his costume for an imminent appearance on Saturday Night Live.

With the next presidential debate fast approaching, the fly incident can surely only be topped by a large bumblebee making an unscheduled landing on President Donald Trump’s snoot.

Digital Trends has reached out to Pence’s fly for comment, but we don’t think we’ll be hearing back anytime soon.

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
I paid Meta to ‘verify’ me — here’s what actually happened
An Instagram profile on an iPhone.

In the fall of 2023 I decided to do a little experiment in the height of the “blue check” hysteria. Twitter had shifted from verifying accounts based (more or less) on merit or importance and instead would let users pay for a blue checkmark. That obviously went (and still goes) badly. Meanwhile, Meta opened its own verification service earlier in the year, called Meta Verified.

Mostly aimed at “creators,” Meta Verified costs $15 a month and helps you “establish your account authenticity and help[s] your community know it’s the real us with a verified badge." It also gives you “proactive account protection” to help fight impersonation by (in part) requiring you to use two-factor authentication. You’ll also get direct account support “from a real person,” and exclusive features like stickers and stars.

Read more
Here’s how to delete your YouTube account on any device
How to delete your YouTube account

Wanting to get out of the YouTube business? If you want to delete your YouTube account, all you need to do is go to your YouTube Studio page, go to the Advanced Settings, and follow the section that will guide you to permanently delete your account. If you need help with these steps, or want to do so on a platform that isn't your computer, you can follow the steps below.

Note that the following steps will delete your YouTube channel, not your associated Google account.

Read more
How to download Instagram photos for free
Instagram app running on the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5.

Instagram is amazing, and many of us use it as a record of our lives — uploading the best bits of our trips, adventures, and notable moments. But sometimes you can lose the original files of those moments, leaving the Instagram copy as the only available one . While you may be happy to leave it up there, it's a lot more convenient to have another version of it downloaded onto your phone or computer. While downloading directly from Instagram can be tricky, there are ways around it. Here are a few easy ways to download Instagram photos.

Read more