Twitter is totally creeped out by Paul Ryan's logo
Note to the House GOP: If people automatically associate your speaker's logo with the Nazi party, even though it resembles a symbol used for years by that office, it might be time for a regroup.
On Friday, Twitter user @EricVespe noticed Paul Ryan's new logo on speaker.gov, which shows an eagle with spread wings, resembles the emblem of the Nazi party. While the resemblance is no doubt unintentional -- and almost certainly modeled after the official speaker logo -- it's also noticeable. And newly red.
To be fair, the seal of the speaker, the position to which Ryan has just been reelected, also has an eagle with spread wings atop a globe. (We contacted Ryan's office for more but had not heard back at time of publish.)
The Wayback Machine internet archive shows that in 2015, when John Boehner was speaker, speaker.gov had a logo more similar to the original, while in 2010, Nancy Pelosi only used an image of the capitol and the U.S. flag.
When Ryan replaced Boehner in 2015, his logo was also more similar to the original (it appears below). The modernized red design appears to have been added to the website in early January, at the beginning of Ryan's most recent tenure.
All the speaker logos, of course, also resemble the Marine Corps logo.
But growing concerns about the rise of white nationalism in the U.S. -- coupled with the new image's similarity -- struck Twitter as eerie and caused the idea to take off like fire on Friday.
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As Vespe explained:
Time for that rebrand?
Heather was the Web Trends reporter at Mashable NYC. Prior to joining Mashable, Heather wrote regularly for UPROXX and GOOD Magazine, was published in The Daily Dot and VICE, and had her work featured in Entertainment Weekly, Jezebel, Mic, and Gawker. She loves small terrible dogs and responsible driving. Follow her on Twitter @wear_a_helmet.
