This might actually make Times Square worth walking through. (post by @KosinerSky via X; all screenshots Lisa Yin Zhang/Hyperallergic unless otherwise noted)

New York is a tale of a million cities. A city of arts, of finance; a melting pot, a crucible. We’ve got the most billionaires on earth, while one in three residents faces food insecurity. The largest Muslim population in the country — and the largest Jewish, Chinese, and Dominican communities, too. Yesterday, between the hours of 6am and 9pm, this cacophony of voices, this messy congregation, got a chance to speak aloud who we want to be.

I heard the celebration before I received the notification: Zohran Mamdani will be the 111th mayor of New York City. Our first Muslim mayor, elected a quarter-century after the ugly wave of Islamophobia following 9/11, which the sitting president of the United States continues to inflame. Our youngest in more than a century. He represents a more equitable future, a more hopeful one, a kinder one. A culmination of what it looks like to dream together across lifetimes.

Vox populi, indeed. But beyond the ballot box, memes are another way the people speak — one of the most populist avenues of expression we have, the graffiti of the internet age. In the last almost-decade, beginning 2016 — the first of my adult life, the first since I’ve had a vote — those have mostly been the laugh-to-keep-from-weeping variety, for obvious reasons. We’ve used them to unravelthe real-time martyrdom of false prophets, to defuse the destructive potential of xenophobic violence, to air out our grievances. But we also use them to give voice to our hope. And of course, we use them to celebrate.

My fellow New Yorkers, in your own words:

(@TaylorLorenz via X)

And also in Kamala Harris’s words:

We laughed, we cried, we got White boy wasted:

(@jacobkornbluh via X)

(@ lllliatttt via X)

This election gave us hope, and not just for the city:

(@Rodericka via X)

We got some representation — speaking not as an Asian American at this moment, but as a baddie:

(@caitlin_mmm via X)

The “Graphic Design Is My Passion” among us found a muse:

(@BarbieAgitprop via X)

(@RealConorOil via X)

We clowned on racist takes, laying bare the ridiculousness at their core:

(@PresidentToguro via X)

Sharia law? More like —

Even Rama got in on it. (@zukolore via X)

We made in-jokes so particular that even this lifelong New Yorker had to look them up:

(screenshot Rhea Nayyar/Hyperallergic)

But we’ve got to take a minute to give some props to all the losers of the night, starting with the New York Post, the poet laureate of the unhinged right. I mean, come on:

(@JPHilllllll via X)

(@bigdybbukenergy via X)

And, of course, loser incarnate, Andrew Cuomo, roasted by a politician who actually won their election, no less:

(@chiosse via Instagram; screenshot Rhea Nayyar/Hyperallergic)

(@youwouldntpost via X)

We’ve got to give an honorable mention to Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa, because no New York City mayoral election would be complete without a guy who’s essentially a ready-made meme:

Say what you will — the guy is passionate. (@alex_shephard via X)

Speaking of readymade memes, a courtesy Eric Adams mention.

I hate to say it, but maybe former mayor Eric Adams (god, that feels good to type) deserves just a sliver of credit. (@futurenomics via X)

God, I love New York.

(@katefeetie via X)