Items

• 
  2020

  Zoom Meetings

  This was a meme my friends and I shared around after Zoom became the #1 way of communicating, both in work and personal lives. It's poking fun at how awkward and stiff people usually look on camera, as well as the learning curve around using different Zoom functions.
• 
  2022-04-04

  Traumatic Event After Traumatic Event

  Screenshot I found from @lovedoveclarke on Twitter. A little dark humor surrounding the many traumatic events we keep experiencing
• 
  2022-03-02

  I Support the Current Thing

  This is an Instagram post by waking.the.dead. This is an NPC meme of people claiming they have a healthy distrust of authority, while supporting things imposed by authority. The NPC meme is a meme that gained popularity in the late 2010s and has had continued popularity in the 2020s. NPC stands for "Non Playable Character", which is a term used in gaming for pre-programed characters that have a set script for when the players interact with them. This has expanded to apply to people, with it being used as a slight towards any and all political sides, and portraying the side they don't agree with as having no original thoughts of their own. The context of the NPC meme with the "I have AIDS" thing at the bottom is a reference to the claim that some of the COVID vaccines actually weaken immune systems and sometimes give people AIDS. The mask with the Ukraine flag refers to the current war between Russia and Ukraine, and support of Ukraine in some circles has been seeing as "following the herd because the media/government said to." The top part of "I have healthy distrust of authority" is meant to be ironic, as the NPC has fallen for all the current narratives without question.
• 
  2021-03-19

  The Coronavirus Sounds Kinda Dangerous

  This is an Instagram post by clarellou. The post is of a comic showing a man with unhealthy habits calling the coronavirus dangerous. This is supposed to be criticism of people not taking care of their own health, while being fearful of something less deadly than being obese or a drug abuser.
• 
  2022-04-09

  Coping with humor

  Sometimes coping through humor is what gets us through.
• 
  2022-04-04

  Trust the Science

  This is an Instagram post by memefrog9000. This is another meme where it depicts a soy wojak (the wojak on the left) and the Chad wojak (the wojak on the right with the blond hair). This meme is making fun of people like the soy wojak that "trust the science", only later to get the virus despite getting vaccinated. The Chad wojak then suggests the soy wojak use some "horse paste" to help. "Horse paste" refers to Ivermectin, which is used to treat horses. There has been controversy if Ivermectin does treat COVID, or other things in humans for that matter, but the FDA currently recommends against it.
• 
  2022-04-07

  *me in 10 years*

  This is a meme found on Instagram from biddamemes. This meme depicts how someone would feel 10 years from now and being reminded of 2020 in small ways. The items in the flashback are very relevant, as hand sanitizer had major shortages in 2020, with some places putting a cap on how much people could buy at one time. It also shows things like empty shelves, which did happen at the very beginning of 2020 with people panic buying. One of the most panic bought items was toilet paper, and companies that produced toilet paper could not keep up with the amount of panic buyers, so for a few months, nicer toilet paper was harder to come by.
• 
  2020-03-28

  Saturdays are for "toilet paper jokes"

  A comic strip about Covid-19
• 
  0017-01-17

  A new idea of delicates

  Finding humor during the pandemic has been hard, but we still find our way. Washing delicates turned into washing masks during the pandemic.
• 
  2020-04-01

  Zoom Meeting Fashion

  What's been your pandemic work attire? It's gotten much comfier these days when you're only having to be seen from the chest up.
• 
  2021-10-06

  Introverts during social distancing

  I was scrolling through memes and this one adequately describes my reaction to social distancing at the beginning of the pandemic. I felt like my time had finally come when we had to begin social distancing and staying at home. I'm not a very social person so I was happy being in my little bubble.
• 
  2021-10-06

  Getting out feels like a Resident Evil game

  Getting out and gathering groceries or even running errands makes you feel like you're the protagonist in a Resident Evil game. I'm always vigilant when I go out and I make sure I comply with mask rules and social distancing. As a Resident Evil fan, this made me chuckle.
• 
  2021-10-07

  It's just allergies, I swear!

  As someone who has seasonal allergies, I got this look a lot at the beginning of the pandemic.
• 
  2020-04-29

  These are the 43 best COVID-19 memes for the week of March 27

  We published our favorite 63 COVID-19 memes not too long ago and the response was overwhelming. Turns out during these serious, scary and uncertain times, one thing is for sure: We could all use a good laugh. And one more thing that’s for sure: the memes just keep on coming. We bring you this week’s best COVID-19 sayings and memes.
• 
  2021-10-04

  Kidding... Just Kidding...

  Hunting around the internet for pandemic memes and came across this one. For some, this is the first time they have had to spend an extended amount of time at home all day every day with family and the struggle is real... so very real!
• 
  2021-10-04

  Not what was Expected...

  I found this while searching online for pandemic memes and it gave me a chuckle!
• 
  2020-04-09

  How fast things can change

  At the start of 2020, and even into the beginning of March, we had absolutely no idea what was lurking right around the corner. I recently got shown this video, and I thought it did a perfect job of capturing the suddenness of the pandemic. So much happened in only a matter of a few weeks; the shift in what life was and would be like in April compared to January was stark.
• 
  2021-01-19

  Meme about the Pandemic in Austria

  I saw this meme in January 2021. It was created by an Austrian online news platform called "k.at" and was posted on their Instagram channel. The first picture on the left shows a hamster who is hoarding (or rather "hamstering") toilet paper. This showcases a phenomenon which occurred in Austria as well as in Germany: some people bought as much toilet paper as they could in the beginning of the pandemic out of fear of a lockdown (also other things as e.g. noodles, rice etc.). The result was that most people couldn't buy any toilet paper because it was sold out at most places and the manufacturers of toilet paper couldn't keep up with the production. It was kind of absurd. The second picture on the right also shows a hamster who seems to have a great time skiing. This should represent the third Austrian lockdown. At this time (around January 2021) many Austrian tourists went skiing even though the numbers of Corona cases were rising. It was quite a controversy at the time because a lot of other activities (like social gatherings) were regulated by the state for health precautions, but the skiing resorts weren't affected (and the Corona cases were also rising in these places). A little sidenote: The Coronavirus allegedly came to Germany in 2020 because of German tourists who came back from said Austrian ski travels...
• 
  2020-11-01

  Homemade Mask Meme

  I took this photo of my brother when I went to visit him while he was living in Concord, Massachusetts, and I was studying remotely at home in West Springfield, Massachusetts. We had just come back from visiting Walden Pond for the first time. My brother was living with his best friend's grandfather at the time, and even though my brother did not leave the house much, he still wore a mask inside the house as a precaution. After he finished eating, my brother went to put his mask on again, except he aimed a little high. Thinking it looked funny, I took a picture and made it into a meme. I felt like having the mask cover his entire face was similar to a face-palm or banging one's head against the wall, somehow symbolic of the grind that pandemic life had become.
• 2020-03

  Finding Joy in the Little Things

  As someone with anxiety, existing during the pandemic lockdown of 2020 was very difficult. I found myself even more anxious with health-related thoughts, especially at the beginning of the lockdowns in March of 2020. There wasn't a ton of accurate information being disseminated, and I remember my family and I religiously sanitizing everything, including shopping bags. One of the ways we kept each other sane was by recreating experiences at home. For example, I created a "home theater," for my boyfriend. In reality it was just a sign that said "Home Theater," with a few movies we could stream, but it made the experience fun. We joked about the little movie "tickets" I made (scraps of paper) as well as the theater seats (pillows propped on the bed). In the end, it was moments like this that made the first wave of Covid bearable.
• 
  2021-08-14

  Star Wars Meme

  picture showing a meme posted by Mark Hamill. It pokes fun at how ridiculous anti-maskers sound about having the right to not wear a mask. He calls on people not to be "maskholes"
• 
  2021-08-10

  Street Art

  A friend of mine posted this photograph on social media
• 
  2021-08-04

  Tips from the ER

  Steve is a retired ER tech who has combined comedy with medical advice. In this clip, he uses humor to break down why being vaccinated is better than avoiding the vaccine even though it is still possible to contract the covid virus.
• 
  2021-08-10

  COVID meme

  I think what makes Covid memes so funny is that they are sometimes based on truth...
• 2021-08-09

  THE19: Howl of a Mad (American) COVID-dodger, a Dia-Rant

  A year from the perspective of an immuno-compromised, mulitple comorbidities survivor stranded in place until vaccine in a poor, rural, underserved and politically conservative Colorado ski and summer resort community over run by affluent COVID torurism.
• 
  2021-08-03

  Control Group

  It's sadly interesting how many people are clinging onto this thought of their rights being infringed on. I have a lot of acquaintances on social media that have excuses like liberty and rights. Some people still believe there is a government conspiracy, that we have been implanted with a mind-controlling chip, or that were being willfully expereimented on. I have come to a point where, as frustrating as it is, I don't care if people won't get vaccinated. It's a sad thought but I hope they done die of the virus. Like with many things in life I think humor does a really good job cooling heated situations down. I laughed louder than I thought I would when I came across this meme on my feed.
• 
  2021-07

  Wolfeboro PO Whiteboard

  The top of the program office at Camp Wolfeboro, where the camp director and program director offices are, has a large whiteboard every year where Scouts are invited to draw anything so long as it is Scouting-appropriate. The two photos of the whiteboard were taken at the middle and end of the fifth session of camp; IMG_5768.jpg was taken on Wednesday, July 21 at 11:41 AM, and IMG_5817.jpg was taken on Friday, July 23 at 4:17 PM. In the two and a half days between the photos, there were some additions made to the board. The whiteboard includes a variety of references to recent cultural trends, some of which include: -Upper left: text reading "whats [sic] so funny about Sussus Amongus", a reference to a YouTube video titled "What's so funny about sussus amogus?", itself an Among Us parody of the Biggus Dickus sketch from Monty Python's Life of Brian. -Center left, immediately next to the edge of the board: the word "SHEESH" in orange marker, which is used to show a sense of disbelief about something, with a positive tone (similar to how "dang" or "damn" might be used) -Upper center, slightly to the right: a dark green drawing of an open eye crying laughing emoji, an edited version of the laughing crying emoji that is used in memes to signify an emotional reaction to something -Bottom right: an orange-colored set of Olympic rings, with the words "Olympians [illegible]" in blue beneath it Some of the additions between Wednesday and Friday include: -Center left: an Among Us crewmate next to a text bubble saying "SUSSY!" (a reference to the slang term "sus", meaning suspicious, often used alongside references to Among Us) Many of the specific cultural references refer to the video game Among Us. According to the program director, the massive Garfield drawing at the bottom left was drawn during the 2019 camp season but became unerasable by the time camp opened in 2021 (camp did not take place in-person in 2020).
• 
  2020-07-19

  14 Working from Home Memes That Are Hilariously Accurate

  Humor is one of the best ways to deal with stressful situations, such as working from home. This collection of memes take a humorous look at the teleworking lifestyle.
• 
  2020

  Humorous memes about coronavirus

  During quarantine I collected many humorous memes about staying at home and the problems that brought. All sorts of subjects were covered: cooking, getting along with your spouse/roommates, homeschooling the kids, learning to bake bread, being stuck at home, sanitizing, facemasks, people hoarding toilet paper, boredom, effects of isolation, etc. Here are a few of those memes.
• 
  2020

  Humorous memes about toilet paper during corona

  During quarantine I collected many humorous memes about staying at home and the problems that brought. All sorts of subjects were covered: cooking, getting along with your spouse/roommates, homeschooling the kids, learning to bake bread, being stuck at home, sanitizing, facemasks, people hoarding toilet paper, boredom, effects of isolation, etc. Here are a few of those memes.
• 
  2020

  Humorous Memes about Coronavirus

  During quarantine I collected many humorous memes about staying at home and the problems that brought. All sorts of subjects were covered: cooking, getting along with your spouse/roommates, homeschooling the kids, learning to bake bread, being stuck at home, sanitizing, facemasks, people hoarding toilet paper, boredom, effects of isolation, etc. Here are a few of those memes.
• 
  2020

  Humorous Memes about Coronavirus

  During quarantine I collected many humorous memes about staying at home and the problems that brought. All sorts of subjects were covered: cooking, getting along with your spouse/roommates, homeschooling the kids, learning to bake bread, being stuck at home, sanitizing, facemasks, people hoarding toilet paper, boredom, effects of isolation, etc. Here are a few of those memes.
• 2020

  Humorous Memes about Corona

  During quarantine I collected many humorous memes about staying at home and the problems that brought. All sorts of subjects were covered: cooking, getting along with your spouse/roommates, homeschooling the kids, learning to bake bread, being stuck at home, sanitizing, facemasks, people hoarding toilet paper, boredom, effects of isolation, etc. Here are a few of those memes.
• 
  2020

  Humorous Corona Memes

  During quarantine I collected many humorous memes about staying at home and the problems that brought. All sorts of subjects were covered: cooking, getting along with your spouse/roommates, homeschooling the kids, learning to bake bread, being stuck at home, sanitizing, facemasks, people hoarding toilet paper, boredom, effects of isolation, etc. Here are a few of those memes.
• 
  2020

  Humorous Memes About Quarantine and Covid

  During quarantine I collected many humorous memes about staying at home and the problems that brought. All sorts of subjects were covered: cooking, getting along with your spouse/roommates, homeschooling the kids, learning to bake bread, being stuck at home, sanitizing, facemasks, people hoarding toilet paper, boredom, effects of isolation, etc. Here are a few of those memes.
• 
  2020

  Humorous Memes About Quarantine and Covid

  During quarantine I collected many humorous memes about staying at home and the problems that brought. All sorts of subjects were covered: cooking, getting along with your spouse/roommates, homeschooling the kids, learning to bake bread, being stuck at home, sanitizing, facemasks, people hoarding toilet paper, boredom, effects of isolation, etc. Here are a few of those memes.
• 
  2020

  Humorous Memes about Quarantine and COVID

  During quarantine I collected many humorous memes about staying at home and the problems that brought. All sorts of subjects were covered: cooking, getting along with your spouse/roommates, homeschooling the kids, learning to bake bread, being stuck at home, sanitizing, facemasks, people hoarding toilet paper, boredom, effects of isolation, etc. Here are a few of those memes.
• 
  2020

  Humorous Memes About Quarantine and Covid

  During quarantine I collected many humorous memes about staying at home and the problems that brought. All sorts of subjects were covered: cooking, getting along with your spouse/roommates, homeschooling the kids, learning to bake bread, being stuck at home, sanitizing, facemasks, people hoarding toilet paper, boredom, effects of isolation, etc. Here are a few of those memes.
• 
  2020

  Memes About Quarantine and Life With Covid

  During quarantine I collected many humorous memes about staying at home and the problems that brought. All sorts of subjects were covered: cooking, getting along with your spouse/roommates, homeschooling the kids, learning to bake bread, being stuck at home, sanitizing, people hoarding toilet paper, boredome, effects of isolation, etc. Here are a few of those memes.
• 
  2021-07-13

  Essential AF

  Most people think of essential workers as public servants, mainly hospital staff but this picture shows that there were some unexpected jobs that were at one point labeled essential. This photo got some unexpected comments on Instagram like this one - "In that dark time, you helped people stay positive thru a pandemic man! That was the most essential work then." And this other one "But ice cream was essential during the pandemic! It was basically my only reason to live for a lil while." A lot of people found this picture funny but surprisingly many were quick to point out that it was the simple things, like mascots and ice cream, that kept us all smiling.
• 
  2020-12-12

  Golden Girls Pandemic Humor

  I shared this meme on my Facebook page on December 12, 2020. It uses a popular line from the character Sophia from the hit TV series The Golden Girls. In the show, Sophia would always start a humorous story about her life in Sicily with the phrase, "Picture it, Sicily 19xx..." I love that show and that character, so when I saw this meme I had to share it because I could picture myself doing this to my future grandkids. It made me laugh about a dark time, and think about life beyond the pandemic. Those of us who are lucky enough to survive it will definitely have one heck of a story to tell.
• 
  2020

  Humorous Memes about Masks

  Here are some humorous memes about wearing facemasks. Wearing masks was something new and weird for us, so many people decided to find the humor in the situation
• 
  2020

  Covid jokes about bars during the time of COVID-19

  This is a set of jokes about bars during COVID which were closed for several months. There are many old jokes that start out "Three (different sorts of) people walk into a bar..." Here is a Corona version. Another one shows how people in an apartment building gather on the rooftop parking lot for cocktail hour, and the other two are jokes about when bars finally reopen.
• 
  2020

  Haircuts during quarantine

  During the initial outbreak of Coronavirus, barbers and hair salons were closed and we didn't feel safe going to them anyway. So many did some home-grown haircuts. The results, ummm, varied.
• 
  2020

  Uncovering long-forgotten and buried artifacts during Covid time

  The plague of COVID-19 descended upon us in 2020. People created humorous memes and joked that this year wouldn't be the right time to unearth hidden mummies or other mysterious long buried. Who knows what might happen next? Best to avoid. Enough's enough.
• 
  2020

  Zoom mishaps

  During quarantine we used software called Zoom. It allowed us to communicate from our homes and get some work done. It also allowed video connection. There were many goofs--people caught naked, bad hair, uncensored conversations when the mics were unknowingly on, etc. One meme shows the Jetsons which was a 1960s futuristic animated show that was very popular.
• 
  2020

  Humorous memes about 2020

  These memes humorously sum up the way 2020 went for us. We were stuck at home. Many of us baked bread and didn't get dressed for days. Our poiticians told us one thing one day and then contradicted it the next.
• 
  2021-04-17

  Corona Culture Products #2 UV Light Sanitizing Box

  This is a photograph of a UV light box for sanitizing items that may have been infected with COVID. This professional and stylish looking box was a long time coming. In late spring 2020, as summer was approaching, the CDC and leading doctors announced that the UV rays in sunlight killed the Coronavirus on surfaces within minutes. This led people to hang their masks in their car windows, and leave things outside to sanitize them. It was also believed to be safer to be outside on a sunny summer day because the sunlight would kill the COVID virus in the air and on objects. This primitive method is not available all the time and cannot be taken inside though, so companies created various products that produced UV light that were portable and could be used inside. While a late bloomer to the UV trend, this is a perfect example of the use of UV light against COVID. As you can see from the descriptive packaging, any small items, especially phones, can be put into the box, and after 10 minutes will be sanitized. Great care was taken to point out its effectiveness as seen in the "kills 99.9% of germs" and "laboratory proven technology" statements on the front of the package. Of course, it's not just useful but is discreet and stylish as it looks like a purse or a make-up bag. This item is important because it shows the lengths people went to try and keep their things clean. It also shows the power of fads during Corona. Everyone jumped at the chance to try UV light when it was first announced, yet it decreased in importance for most people after summer 2020. Like all the Corona Culture products, it reveals the depth to which Corona became imbedded into the U.S.'s consciousness.
• 
  2021-04-12

  Corona Vocabulary

  This is a comprehensive (but not exhaustive) list of the most common Corona themed vocabulary used by in the U.S. While a definition of each term is not provided, linked websites provide context and explanations of many of the words. Culled from a variety of real world sources, what is most important about these terms is what their use says about the culture they created/were used in. From the use of everyday pandemic language, researchers can gain a window into the COVID experience in a way that is inaccessible even in photographs. These terms also show the United States was undergoing dramatic social and cultural change and some terms highlight the political conflict that was often meshed with Corona in the U.S. The vocabulary also shows a degree of conformity in U.S. culture as all of these terms became part of most Americans' vocabulary. The case of the work "healthcare worker" and "virtual" are two examples of this. Before medical staff, nurse doctor, EMT, online, distance learning, etc. were used to refer to these things, but now Americans have dropped them for the COVID versions. This shows how powerful Corona vocabulary has become.
• 
  2021-01-21

  Corona Culture Products

  These pictures are a collection of Corona themed products from summer 2020 to January 2021. As you can see, there was a great variety of products and some of the most unusual appeared starting 2021. Of particular note is the coffee mug and a small wall plaque. Even the infant phrases "Social distancing" and "Healthcare worker" had crept into daily items in real stores. By fall, masks were being advertised in stores on long plastic hangers and had become just as common on random aisles as dish gloves, scrubber pads, and dryer balls. By January 2021, companies had begun to get creative with masks and shields. The final picture shows a set of children's face shields encased with the features of animal heads. This was likely to appeal to children who like to pretend to be animals. One company also began to make masks in small, medium, large, and extra large, to accommodate the variety of face shapes among the public (not pictured). The most important thing about all these products is that they show how deeply embedded Corona had become in United States culture despite the fact that it was not even a year since the virus appeared in the U.S. This indicates that companies were actively involved in both creating and maintaining a COVID consumer culture that tied what people experienced to what they could buy. Although more difficult to determine, it also shows a demand for such items both out of necessity (masks) and for leisure or fun (mug, animal shields). These items also reveal that COVID-19 was a highly unique event in that it was so marketable. No other event in the 21st century generated as much cultural/societal presence as Corona. These products should be further studied to see what better understanding about Corona can be gained from them.