About

Stay Alert is a UK government revised slogan (previously Stay Home) released in May 2020 addressing an approach to the coronavirus pandemic as the UK enters its first phase of reopening. An image of the full slogan "Stay alert, Control the virus, Save lives" was leaked by the Telegraph and led to edits and criticism on Twitter.

Origin

On May 9th, 2020, The Telegraph published the article "Stay alert: Boris Johnson's new message to the nation" and stated that "The new slogan – “Stay alert, Control the virus, Save lives” – has been drawn up by Isaac Levido, the Australian strategist, and Ben Guerin, a 25-year-old New Zealander who advised the Conservatives on their social media strategy during last year’s election" (shown below).

Spread

On May 9th, 2020, author J.K. Rowling took to Twitter^[3] to criticize the slogan and tweeted, "Is Coronavirus sneaking around in a fake moustache and glasses? If we drop our guard, will it slip us a Micky Finn? What the hell is ‘stay alert’ supposed to mean?" (shown below, left). The tweet garnered over 28,100 likes and 4,400 retweets in two days. That same day, Twitter users began uploaded edits of the slogan image provided in the Telegraph article. Twitter user @WordsmithUK^[4] post various examples captioned, "…and all before 9.43am on a Sunday morning. #StayAlert #CopywritersUnite #Headlines" (shown below, right). The tweet gained over 2,400 likes and 1,000 retweets in a day.

On May 10th, Boris Johnson^[5] used the hashtag #stayarlert in a tweet regarding the slogan and the new approach (shown below). The tweet accumulated over 20,400 likes and 5,700 retweets in a day. Indy100^[2] published an article on the Stay Alert memes.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References