TikTok Nurse Coffin Dance Controversy

Overview

TikTok Nurse Coffin Dance Controversy refers to a video uploaded to TikTok in April 2020 by @JoedMarieLaboyDes, a doctor based in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in which a group of nurses carry a fake corpse labeled "COVID-19" to imitate the coffin dance meme. The video circulated Twitter and drew negative comments due to the dark subject matter.

Background

On April 29th, 2020, Twitter user @realjuliasong reposted TikToker @JoedMarieLaboyDes's video (original has since been deleted). The video captioned, "The corona tik tok nurse videos cannot get any wor…" received over 2.1 million views, 12,700 likes and 4,400 retweets in two days (shown below).

Developments

On April 19th, 2020, Twitter users continued to discuss the video. Twitter user @PrisonPlanet posted another one of @JoedMarieLaboyDes's TikTok videos captioned, "For people asking “is this real?” – yes, her Tik Tok page is full of hospital dancing videos" (shown below). The tweet garnered over 95,000 views, 2,700 likes and 900 retweets in two days.

That day, although some Twitter users dismissed the TikTok video saying that making TikTok videos is a "coping mechanism," the response was overwhelmingly negative. Twitter user @MsBlaireWhite^[3] tweeted, "The dancing was one thing. I stomached it and told myself they need to blow off steam. This??? This is gross" (shown below, left) and Twitter user @purdhommeobrien^[4] tweeted, "6 people and not one stopped and said; “this might not be a good idea” (shown below, right). The tweets accumulated over 2,500 likes and 360 likes respectively in two days. The Daily Dot^[2] and Daily Wire^[1] published articles on the video.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References