After We Get the Vaccine

Submission 8,802

Part of a series on COVID-19 Pandemic. [View Related Entries]

About

After We Get the Vaccine is a phrase that became popular on Twitter in the latter half of 2020 as a way to make jokes about what they want to do after getting the COVID-19 vaccination. It also refers to a dance trend on TikTok popular at the same time, in which users dance by rhythmically twitching their bodies under on-screen captions reading things like, "1 hour after taking the COVID vaccine."

Origin

It's unknown who first used the phrase online in relation to a joke or meme. On June 15th, 2020, Twitter user Dan_Cassaro tweeted,^[1] "me and the boys after we get the vaccine" along with images of people kissing, garnering over 230 likes and 30 retweets in 6 months (shown below, left). Another early example, although it uses different phrasing, was uploaded to Twitter^[2] on July 22nd, 2020 by user linkedinmindset, in which he posted a picture of two animated humans coughing on each other under the caption, "me and the boys absolutely blasting each other with particles after all this is over:" garnering over 251,000 likes and 38,000 retweets in 5 months (shown below, right).

Spread

Memes using the phrase "after we get the vaccine" and similar wording began to rise in popularity towards the end of November, increasing in popularity throughout December. For example, on November 25th, tastefactory tweeted,^[3] "Coronavirus after we all get the vaccine" attached to a screenshot from The Sopranos (shown below, left). On December 9th, doyalikebaileys tweeted,^[5] "me n the fellas after we get the covid vaccine" along with drawings of various animals dancing, garnering over 2,500 likes and 390 retweets in 6 days (shown below, right).

On December 9th, acechhh tweeted,^[4] "me and the girls after we get the vaccine" along with an image of the characters from Little Bear sitting around a table together, garnering over 295,000 likes and 40,000 retweets in 6 days (shown below, left). On December 11th, thering26 tweeted^[6] the same phrase attached to screenshots from the film Midsommar, garnering over 13,000 likes and 2,600 retweets in 4 days (shown below, right).

X Hours/Days After The COVID-19 Vaccine Dance Trend

On November 27th, 2020, bmoved1 uploaded a video to TikTok^[7] set to fast-paced drumming with the on-screen caption, "1 MONTH AFTER COVID VACCINE" (shown below). In the video, bmoved throws away a mask and then acts as if her body is twitching involuntarily to the beat, implying that the vaccine is causing these movements. The video gained over 1.5 million views in 2 weeks.

The dance trend caught on with both North American and Spanish users. On December 4th, jamaldabossford uploaded a video to TikTok^[8] captioned "Damn this my 2nd dose of Covid 19 Vaccine" performing the dance, garnering over 8.4 million views in 11 days (shown below, left). On December 5th, Spanish TikToker kentkinberly uploaded a video to TikTok^[9] in which someone performs the dance, garnering over 29 million views in 10 days (shown below, right).