![]() ![]() After posting the viral video in which she licks a toilet seat as part of a hypothetical "coronavirus challenge" on March 14, Ava Louise told Insider that the challenge was something that she had made up. Just as certain memes became more grounded in material objects or experiences, influencers like Ava Louise were licking airplane toilet seats for clout. Things young people did for clout in mid-March were blown wildly out of proportion. ![]() Memeing items in short supply allowed people both to inject some humor into the situation as well as highlight the behaviors that were causing shortages in the first place. There were also toilet paper memes, brought about by the toilet paper shortages that followed mass stockpiling of resources in some communities. With hand sanitizer becoming a hot button topic as news emerged about people stockpiling thousands of bottles of it to re-sell even amidst national shortages, people put a classic meme format to use - celebs as things - and began to make memes of celebrities as hand sanitizers. Memes got more specific as coronavirus-induced panic-buying became a part of American culture in mid-March.Īt this point, things had begun to escalate in the United States: on March 18, President Trump invoked the Defense Production Act in order to leverage the private sector in response to the pandemic, and on March 19, California Governor Gavin Newsom instituted a statewide stay-at-home order. Kukuh Adi March 7, 2020Įarly March was also when " Ghen Cô Vy", a retooled, coronavirus-specific version of Vietnamese pop song " Ghen," spun into a TikTok dance challenge encouraging people to wash their hands and avoid touching their face. People fit familiar song lyrics (or literary passages) over a hand-washing infographic, with many using a website built by a teenager from the UK. ![]() Hand-washing in and of itself became a meme, particularly the recommendation to wash for 20 seconds or more. As the situation in the United States began to worsen, the CDC also recommended that Americans frequently wash their hands for 20 seconds or more in order to rinse away germs. Experts had already been pushing hand-washing as one of the most effective measures in curtailing the spread of the virus. These early weeks of March were largely characterized by memes of things like hand-washing. There were also musically focused memes in early March, highlighting handwashing or prevention techniques. Trends moved from joking about the virus and memeing in-demand items to sharing personal experiences and ramifications from the virus itself, becoming less specific and more absurd as the pandemic became the biggest part of daily life. The novel coronavirus is no longer culturally novel, and that's reflected in the memes and trends that have emerged on platforms like Twitter and TikTok over the course of 2020. At the same time, President Trump is supporting Americans who have taken to the streets to call for the economy to reopen, seemingly encouraging some of them to "liberate" their states. At this point in the United States, 45 out of 50 states have issued at least a partial stay-at-home order and quarantine has become a part of our daily life. While early memes about the virus were initially rather lighthearted and focused on specific hot button topics like hand sanitizer, the discourse has shifted. Over the course of January, February, and especially March, online chatter and memeing of the pandemic has shifted radically. People across the globe have been sharing their experiences and sentiments through memes on Twitter, TikTok, and other platforms. It often indicates a user profile.Īs the novel coronavirus has dominated hard news and government over the course of 2020, it has also dominated the meme cycle. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders. ![]()
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