Zach Praiss

Project:

Joe Biden eats Cornell Dairy ice cream

Date:

May 27, 2017

Role:

Creator and social media lead

Contributions:

Graphic design and Facebook event social media content.

Upon hearing that Joe Biden was speaking at my alma mater's commencement, I rounded up a few friends with the idea of launching a Facebook event calling for him to eat Cornell Dairy ice cream. Given the Vice President's love of ice cream and the university's notoriety for its ice cream, we thought it was a perfect match and unique opportunity to help bolster pride and excitement in the Cornell community. When we launched the Facebook event, little did we expect it to grow into a viral sensation with over 4,000 students expressing interest, thousands of engagements, and hundreds of shares from Cornell organizations and individuals including even Senator Chuck Schumer. In time, the event evolved into a call for Cornell Dairy to make a new flavor of ice cream for the Vice President with us opening a poll with names like Cup o' Joe, Missing Baracky Road, and Cookies and Memes. With initial coverage in The Tab and later The Cornell Daily Sun, the event ultimately moved Cornell Dairy to make the new flavor, picking up national coverage from TIME, FOX News, Now This, HuffPost, Cosmopolitan, and The Hill among others. In the end, Joe Biden enjoyed his new flavor of ice cream when he was presented with a scoop after his remarks at graduation. Note that the photos from the event are not my own.