Time seemed to stop for a captivating two minutes and three seconds at the Vice Presidential Debate as a fly’s six little wiry legs made a landing atop Vice President Mike Pence’s head. On Oct. 2, vice presidential nominees Kamala Harris and Mike Pence argued their stances on a number of divisive issues including COVID-19, healthcare and policing in America. Yet among a barrage of deflection, interruption and misleading statements, a fly made national headlines and sparked an eruption of varied responses from the public. 

Most notably, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden reacted almost immediately through his Twitter account as well as his campaign website. Clutching an orange flyswatter, Biden’s snapshot on Twitter sought to rally support for his new merchandise and campaign donations to “help this campaign fly.”

Swatting away “flies and lies”, Biden’s campaign sold $10 fly swatters with the words “TRUTH over FLIES” which sold out the morning following the debate. In addition to this, his campaign purchased the domain flywillvote.com, which redirects users to iwillvote.com, a voting registration website. 

Meanwhile on Twitter, an account by the name of @MichaelsFly amassed thousands of followers the night of the debate. Presently it has 31,000 followers.

The above-mentioned account’s bio reads, “Living rent free on Mike Pence’s head since 2020.” 

This was not the first time a fly landed on a candidate during a debate; during the 2016 presidential election, Democratic Nominee Hilary Clinton had a fly land on her forehead.

The combination of both Clinton and Pence’s incidents gave rise to memes declaring that the fly chose the loser of the election. Clinton famously lost the last presidential election despite receiving the popular vote. This theory was a result of speculation following the second incident.

Not only did the phenomenon elicit a response from individuals on social media platforms– the mainstream media had its own riveting reaction.

SNL, widely known for its political skits, guest starred Jim Carrey playing Biden on their cold open following the debates. Using a teleportation device in reference to the movie “The Fly,”  Biden transformed into a fly and touched town on Pence’s head and impersonated Jeff Goldbloom. He was also joined by a fly embodied by the late Hermain Cain, a Trump supporter and former presidential candidate in 2012, who passed away after contracting the virus at a mostly maskless Trump rally. The fly playing him irritably exclaimed, “Trump and Pence killed me, man!”

Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky attributed the event to “illegal spying” by the “deep state” on Twitter. Paul is notorious for disseminating and promoting right-wing conspiracies of this nature.

During an interview with Fox News, reporter Dana Perino asked what his kids said to him after the fly landed on his head. Pence, chuckling, confirmed that his children had informed him replying, “I didn’t know it was there. Now, I love my kids. They all told me — Dad, you did OK. But they did tell me about the fly. It was a good laugh for all of us.”