2017 Solar Eclipse

Overview

The 2017 Solar Eclipse is a total solar eclipse visible in a narrow band within the United States stretching from Oregon to South Carolina on August 21st, 2017.

Background

On June 8th, 1918, the last solar eclipse crossed the entire mainland United States. On February 26th, 1979, an eclipse passed through Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and North Dakota (shown below).

On April 21st, 2017, the total eclipse will be broadcast by NASA TV, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox News, Science and The Weather Channel television stations. Online, the PBS show Nova will stream the eclipse on Facebook.

Developments

Online Reactions

On August 20th, Redditor K12K3N uploaded a "deep fried" eclipse-themed image macro to /r/dankmemes,^[3] where it gained over 4,500 points (97% upvoted) and 90 comments within 24 hours (shown below, right). Meanwhile, Redditor hi_im_cj posted a Who Would Win? image pitting "a flaming ball of gas" against "one rocky boi" to /r/dankmemes^[2] (shown below, right).

On August 21st, Redditor v78 uploaded a pixel art animated GIF of a total eclipse to /r/Art, where it gathered upwards of 18,800 points (94% upvoted) and 220 comments within four hours (shown below).

Trump's "Best Eclipse Ever"

On August 24th, 2017, Donald Trump retweeted an image of himself “eclipsing” former president Barack Obama. The original tweet came from twitter user Jerry Travone who captioned the image “The Best Eclipse Ever”

Variations of the meme have since sprung up on twitter with Trump being the one “eclipsed” by other political figures such as former President Barack Obama and 2016 presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

Reenactments

Reenactments of the solar eclipse with animals began on the day of the eclipse, August 21st, 2017, on both twitter and Instagram. The reenactments typically features a white or cream colored animal being eclipsed by its black animal counterpart.

On August 21st, 2017, twitter account @serenaaaaaa13 uploaded a reenactment of the solar eclipse using two pugs. The tweet was captioned "solar eclipse (2017)" and received 450k retweets and and 879k likes in less then a week.

Search Interest

External References