2020 Writers' Room

Submission 3,477

About

2020 Writers' Room refers to a joke, primarily shared on Twitter, in which users compare the events of 2020 to a television writers' room. Tweets frequently refer to the writers' room going "off the rails," and make reference to the most chaotic events of 2020, including murder hornets, COVID-19, and various political stories.

Origin

The exact origin of writers' room memes is unknown. Imagining a world run by a writers' room has been a joke on Twitter since as far back as 2016 at least. For example, on July 15th, 2016, Twitter user ANN_Bamboo^[1] posted about needing "a change up in the writers' room" (shown below, left). On October 31st, Twitter user morganfahey^[2] compared 2016's writers room to Vampire Diaries (shown below, right).

Writers' room memes continued to grow in popularity over the years. On December 19th, 2017, Twitter user jakebeckman^[3] referenced the year's writers' room in a tweet gaining 263 retweets and 971 likes in nearly three years (shown below, left). On June 4th, 2018, dandrezner^[4] made reference to the year's writers' room being on drugs, garnering 99 likes and 20 retweets in two years (shown below, right).

Spread

2020 saw a significant increase in the writers' room trend due to a large number of negatively perceived world events. One of the earliest instances of a 2020 writers' room joke appears on January 25th, 2020, when Twitter user youbsanctioned^[5] posted, "I see the 2020 writers' room is off to a cracking start" in response to an NBC News story (shown below, left). On February 7th, kayorchison^[6] made another reference to the 2020 writers' room in response to an ABC News tweet (shown below, right).

On August 20th, Twitter user ElieNYC^[7] made a reference to the 2020 writers' room as a response to the postal service capturing Bannon at sea (shown below, left). The tweet gained over 1.1 thousand likes in under 4 months. By September, many were tweeting about how the 2020 writers' room "jumped the shark." On September 19th, SparksAnthony^[8] referred to 2020 as a "hat on a hat," meaning an unnecessarily stacked joke (shown below, right).

Early October saw a large increase in tweets about the 2020 writers' room, including references from notable celebrities. On October 2nd, actors Jeffrey Wright^[9] and Don Cheadle^[10] posted tweets referencing the writers' room, garnering over 490 and 1.4 thousand likes respectively (shown below).

On the same day, Desus Nice^[11] posted a 2020 writers' room meme mentioning murder hornets, garnering over 44.9 thousand likes and 6.5 retweets in 4 days (shown below). This is one of the most popular 2020 writers' room memes on the platform.

Season Finale Tweets

In early October of 2020, Twitter users started making reference to the oncoming season finale of 2020. Many of these tweets make specific reference to Trump and Melania contracting COVID-19.^[12] On October 2nd, 2020, Jard Leto-lead band 30 Seconds To Mars^[13] posted a tweet referencing the 2020 season finale, garnering over 1.4 thousand likes in 4 days (shown below, left). On October 3rd, writer Michael Harriot^[14] posted a joke about the 2020 season finale, gaining over 7.8 thousand likes and 735 retweets in 3 days (shown below, right).