Memes, Texts and Other Jarring Ways Some Americans Heard the Biden News

Jordan Feldman found out that President Biden was ending his campaign for a second term from Liza Minnelli.

Well, kind of. Ms. Feldman, a 29-year-old retail worker who lives in Philadelphia, got the news via @LiZaOutlives, an unofficial X account that is not affiliated with Ms. Minnelli and regularly posts macabre updates about things and people she has outlived. (Ms. Minnelli has said through her manager that she is not a fan of the account.)

In this case, it was Mr. Biden’s re-election campaign that she had outlasted. The post appeared four minutes after Mr. Biden shared the letter announcing his decision on X.

“I get push notifications from them because they break news so quickly,” Ms. Feldman said. She started following the account after Larry King’s death in 2021 and decided to turn on its push notifications (receiving an alert any time the account posts) after James P. Spears was removed as his daughter Britney Spears’s conservator.

Ms. Feldman said she saw the meme account’s post before reports from major news outlets, adding that her friends did not believe her when she told them Mr. Biden was out of the race.