A nearly decade-old piece of nonsensical copypasta was recirculated on social media after it was incorrectly attributed to U.S. President Joe Biden. This quote — "Goats are like mushrooms. Because if you shoot a duck, I'm afraid of toasters" — has been paired with various images of Biden and can be seen on internet memes as well as T-shirts and other merchandise:
This is not a genuine quote from Biden.
This piece of nonsensical copypasta has been circulating online since at least 2012, when it was shared to the r/funny subsection of Reddit. The exact origins of this text are unknown (the Redditor claimed they found the text on 4chan) but it was never uttered by Biden.
According to the website KnowYourMeme, this text has gone viral a few times over the years. In 2014, a tweet containing the "Goats are like mushrooms. Because if you shoot a duck, I'm afraid of toasters" copypasta received more than 20,000 likes. Some high school students have also used this nonsensical quote in their yearbooks.
It wasn't until the 2020 presidential election that this quote started being shared alongside an image of Biden. This was likely done as a joke by those who find Biden's speech to be garbled or gaffe prone. While Biden may accidentally make verbal blunders from time to time, he did not say: "Goats are like mushrooms. Because if you shoot a duck, I'm afraid of toasters."