Right now, the world is on edge, so we’re overwhelmed and a bit frightened. We’re afraid of the uncertainty and unsettled because of the underwhelming response to our current crisis.
Grocery stores have long lines but are full of empty shelves. Officials closed social gathering places, and everyone must now remain at home.
To us, life isn’t normal. A crisis like this can bring out both the good and evil in humanity. It can pull us together, or it can tear us apart. It can help us care more about each other, or it can make us selfish. But one thing is for sure: This crisis has made humor our best relief from our anxiety and stress.
In other words, the Coronavirus memes have genuinely been fire.
More time at home in isolation means more time that we can spend on our phones, making and laughing at memes. Even though some of that screen time involves reading horrible news about the virus, we also have plenty of viral meme content for some humorous relief.
It’s laughable to think that the best thing to come from this historical, frightening pandemic is the collection of memes we find on social media. But we’ve discovered that we just have to love the funny images that arise in a time of crisis. There are several.
The ones about video calls:
If you’ve been on a glitchy Zoom call recently or regularly FaceTime your friends during this time, you know the feeling.
The ones about social distancing:
You’ve never felt more connected to your significant other than when you send them funny things you found on the Internet.
The ones about working from home:
If you’re working from home right now, you can definitely relate to the commute from bed to… bed.
And last but not least, the memes about quarantine life:
There’s nowhere to go, so pants that aren’t sweatpants are officially cancelled.
These memes play a role similar to battlefield entertainers during wartime. They provide an essential escape from reality, no matter how brief. They also provide us comfort and give us hope, no matter how dark the “pandemic humor” might be. These memes have been our escape and have also helped us connect with each other in this period of isolation. We send our personal favorites to our friends and families so they too can escape reality and enjoy a little peace.
Our ability to create humorous content in a time of misery is a human specialty. Our favorite memes are a silver lining in the midst of all this chaos. They give us hope, and even though that hope may not last long, the memes will continue to be fire and help us cope with this global crisis.
Photo by Katka Pavlickova on Unsplash
