Decoder Ring - Making Coal Cute Again

Feb 11, 2026

Nitish Pahwa, Slate energy and climate writer, gives context on the viral Coley image. Simone Randolph, OSMRE communications director, explains the agency’s mission and how Coley started. They talk about the mascot’s origins as an internal morale tool, its public launch tied to infrastructure funding, and why the cute coal meme ignited national mockery and political debate.

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INSIGHT

Mascot Misread As Propaganda

Coley went viral and sparked debate because the public interpreted a cute mascot as pro-coal propaganda.
The mascot actually originated inside OSMRE to explain reclamation and oversight work to the public.

INSIGHT

OSMRE's Actual Mission

OSMRE enforces mining rules and funds reclamation of abandoned mine lands.
The agency has spent billions restoring land, supporting miners, and funding community projects.

ANECDOTE

Office Joke Became A Mascot

Sara Eckert created the first Coley by pasting clipart eyes onto a coal image and printing it out.
That paper Coley sat on an office wall and spread as an internal in-joke at OSMRE.

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Three weeks ago, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum shared an unusual tweet: a cartoon image of himself with his arm draped around a giant, anthropomorphized lump of coal. This piece of coal has big googly eyes and a smudge of a nose, and is wearing a safety vest and a hard hat. He is, frankly, adorable—and he has a name: Coalie.

When Coalie first appeared on the internet, he went viral—ridiculed on social media, in newsletters, and even on late night talk shows. And that’s because this big-eyed, cute piece of coal was widely understood to be coal propaganda, a tool to soften the coal industry’s image.

But the truth about Coalie is more complicated. His origins tell a story about what it’s like for federal employees to try to do their work while navigating the Trump administration’s agenda. Coalie may be widely seen as a mascot for coal mining, but that’s not what he was made for.

In this episode, you’ll hear from Simone Randolph, Director of Communications for the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE); Sara Eckert, formerly of OSMRE; Slate staff writer Nitish Pahwa; and Leah Stokes, who researches climate and energy policy at the University of California, Santa Barbara and co-hosts the podcast A Matter of Degrees.

Thank you to Daniel Raimi, Tony Ho Tran, and Hannah Northey.

This episode was written by Willa Paskin and Evan Chung and produced by Evan Chung, Decoder Ring’s supervising producer. Our show is also produced by Max Freedman and Katie Shepherd. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director.

If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281.

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