Quarantined Memes

About

Quarantined Memes refers to a series of notable meme formats and templates that have been photoshopped or altered to apply to the 2019-2020 coronavirus pandemic. Typically the theme of these involves taking an established format and editing it to relate to the events of the COVID-19 quarantine and lockdown, usually with empty scenes or photoshopped items like masks and toilet paper.

Origin

With the virus continuing to sweep the globe in March 2020, several users from a range of sites and platforms began posting examples of their take on “Quarantined Meme Formats.” One such example was posted on March 15th, 2020, to the Facebook^[1] page Universal Troll. Using the format Boardroom Suggestion, the post (seen below) has been edited to remove everyone from the scene due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Spread

The theme continued to spread in the following days to other social media platforms. On March 15th, 2020, Redditor^[2] MustiXV posted another variant depicting Steven Crowder’s Change My Mind Campus Sign without Crowder in the picture. The meme (shown below) received nearly 30,000 upvotes, 83 comments and a couple of Reddit awards.

On March 23rd, 2020, Redditor^[3] Kshit__ij uploaded a photo of Me And The Boys progressing through various stages of 2020’s disastrous events with the final scene showing everyone communicating through virtual means. The post (seen below) was upvoted over 120,000 times and gifted several Reddit awards, eventually reaching the front page of the r/memes sub.

Redditor^[4] JaFarjaNearjaBeer posted a revamped edit on SpongeBob’s Ight Imma Head Out format on March 24th, 2020, to the r/memes sub depicting SpongeBob leaving, but then realizing he cannot due to the quarantine. The post (shown below) received nearly 48,000 upvotes, 306 comments and a few Reddit awards.

Another example was uploaded to the Facebook^[5] page Woman Yelling at Cat on March 27th, 2020, showing Smudge the Cat hiding from his usual spot in the format and, instead, sleeping in a bed during the quarantine. The upload (seen below) was liked almost 700 times and shared 550 times.

On Twitter,^[6] user teddyvalenzuela posted a photoshopped version of You Know I Had to Do It to Em with Lucky Luciano absent from the scene under the caption, “it’s heartbreaking that with everyone stuck inside their homes, nobody is there to do what has to be done.” The tweet (shown below) received over 281,000 likes and 54,300 retweets.

Various Examples

Search Interest

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External References