Items

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  2020-05-17

  Funny corona beer meme

  HIST30060 - submitted as part of a history assignment. This meme uses symbolism in order to compare the pandemic to disastrous world events. The background depicts an atomic bomb exploding into a mushroom cloud and is overlaid with photographs of an empty toilet roll (alluding to the rush on toilet paper that occurred early in 2020), a bottle of Corona beer (a company unfortunate enough to share a name with the virus), empty shelves (from where people had panicked bought), graphics of the virus and the muppet Elmo wearing a mask, looking into the middle distance. The combination of these graphics suggests that in the future, ‘corona’ will be inextricably linked to the virus and that just saying its name will induce traumatic flashbacks. This suggests that the collective experience of wider society this year could be deemed a sort of shared trauma. It is noteworthy that the vast majority these memes, this one included, do not make light of personal hardships faced by people in order to be malicious and the events alluded to (such as the food hoarding) are not “serious” (like, for example, the economic crisis or the coronavirus death toll) but more trivial inconveniences.
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  2020-05-31

  The history book of 2020

  HIST30060 - submitted as part of an assessment for a history subject. A significant number of the memes I found commented on the incredible number of ‘disasters’ or disruptions that have had a global impact this year (suggesting that this number is far more than anything to occur in the last decade). The disasters referenced in these memes concern a range of instances including the Australian Bushfires, the “threat of World War III” (with the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani by drone strike), the Covid-19 pandemic, the American Murder Hornets, the explosion in Beirut and the American bushfires. The ‘disasters’ or global events that feature in the memes span almost every continent and every sphere from environmental (e.g. the bushfires), the social (e.g. the American race riots), the economic, the political (e.g. the explosion in Beirut and subsequent investigation into corruption) and health (e.g. the pandemic). This particular meme suggests that the study of this year will be an arduous task for history students of the future.
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  2020-09-18

  When a cough isn't just a cough...

  I suffer from severe allergies pretty much year round... So occasionally I sneeze or cough a few times when the pollen is particularly bad. But now, with the pandemic, anytime anyone sneezes or coughs, everyone gives you 'the look.' I find myself automatically explaining my sneeze, "Allergy Sneeze... nothing to see here," each time, so when I saw this meme on pinterest, it made me chuckle!