Its broader social effects have included sweeping institutional shutdowns across cities and states, and growing concern over supply shortages due to citizens in some locations reportedly stockpiling toilet paper and other items in case of quarantine.
The memes have evolved along with our experience of the pandemic. There are also lots of offline pranks, absurdist millennial humor, and apocalyptic social parody. Many memes have been inspired by movements around the country to self-quarantine or shelter in place, while others continue to remind us to wash our hands and avoid touching our face - but with considerably less sobriety than the previous wave of informational memes.
And during that process, it ends up morphing into a different variant that helps the meme spread even further.Īs the past week has delivered an escalation in novel coronavirus cases throughout the US, we’ve watched coronavirus memes evolve from largely educational and encouraging PSAs into full-fledged, modern-day internet humor. The times we’re in have inadvertently offered an example of why we say memes “go viral” on the internet: Like a virus, a meme spreads by copying itself.
