--- title: Chris Christie's Beach Trip Becomes Twitter Meme Target description: Aerial shots of the Republican governor enjoying an empty beach during a government shutdown sparked a flood of memes. canonical: https://time.com/4843805/chris-christie-beach-memes/ author: Mahita Gajanan article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-07-03T16:09:48.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:45:05.890Z og:title: The Internet Had Lots of Fun With Chris Christie's Beach Day og:description: The beach was closed amid a government shutdown og:url: https://time.com/4843805/chris-christie-beach-memes/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltca7416dfcb28f385/6988d44f656a3f588bbd0af5/chris-christie-sun-bathing-new-jersey-beach.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3010 og:image:height: 1693 og:image:alt: chris-christie-sun-bathing-new-jersey-beach og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Internet Had Lots of Fun With Chris Christie's Beach Day twitter:description: The beach was closed amid a government shutdown twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltca7416dfcb28f385/6988d44f656a3f588bbd0af5/chris-christie-sun-bathing-new-jersey-beach.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Internet Had a Lot of Fun With Chris Christie's Beach Outing > Sponsored content. 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The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. by [Mahita Gajanan](https://time.com/author/mahita-gajanan/) ## Mahita Gajanan Gajanan is an editor at TIME. Jul 3, 2017 4:09 PM UTC  New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, right, uses the beach with his family and friends at the governor's summer house at Island Beach State Park in New Jersey on July 2, 2017. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, right, uses the beach with his family and friends at the governor's summer house at Island Beach State Park in New Jersey on July 2, 2017.Andrew Mills—NJ Advance Media/AP by [Mahita Gajanan](https://time.com/author/mahita-gajanan/) ## Mahita Gajanan Gajanan is an editor at TIME. Jul 3, 2017 4:09 PM UTC New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is facing backlash online after photos emerged of him [catching some sun](http://time.com/4843762/chris-christie-beach/?xid=homepage) on a beach he closed to most visitors amid a state government shutdown. Aerial shots of the Republican governor enjoying the [empty beach](http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2017/07/christie%5Fpictured%5Fat%5Fisland%5Fbeach%5Fstate%5Fpark%5Fdurin.html) also sparked a flood of memes depicting Christie on a beach chair in various scenes: > [](https://twitter.com/darth/status/881727197123272704) > [](https://twitter.com/IvanTheK/status/881877055826255872) California Rep. Jack Kimble stuck the governor in a galaxy far, far away: > [](https://twitter.com/RepJackKimble/status/881882092161949696) Here’s Christie in the middle of a classic movie scene: > [](https://twitter.com/NellSco/status/881718964149243904) Christie [defended the controversial trip](http://time.com/4843720/chris-christie-beach-new-jersey-shutdown/?xid=homepage) in an interview with Good Day Philadelphia. “I’m sorry, they’re not the governor,” he said of the people who did not have access to the beach. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4843805/chris-christie-beach-memes/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4843805/chris-christie-beach-memes/"},"headline":"The Internet Had a Lot of Fun With Chris Christie's Beach Outing","datePublished":"2017-07-03T16:09:48.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:45:05.890Z","description":"The beach was closed amid a government shutdown","url":"https://time.com/4843805/chris-christie-beach-memes/","keywords":["Newsfeed","New Jersey","viral","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltca7416dfcb28f385/6988d44f656a3f588bbd0af5/chris-christie-sun-bathing-new-jersey-beach.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Mahita Gajanan","jobTitle":"Gajanan is an editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/mahita-gajanan/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltca7416dfcb28f385/6988d44f656a3f588bbd0af5/chris-christie-sun-bathing-new-jersey-beach.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"chris-christie-sun-bathing-new-jersey-beach","caption":"New Jersey Gov. 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