They Would Only Get Four Free Tests

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About

They Would Only Get Four Free Tests is a catchphrase used to joke about the United States Government's venture in January 2022 to send every American household four free COVID-19 rapid tests. On Twitter, people pair the phrase with images of large families from pop culture in image macros, implying that four free tests won't be enough for many American households.

Origin

On January 18th, 2022, the U.S. Government launched a program where it would ship four free rapid tests to any American household that requested the tests through the U.S. Postal Service.^[1] On January 19th, Twitter user @shadesofgreaves^[2] tweeted an image of the cast of Full House, a TV sitcom where a large family shared one house, writing, "They would only get four free tests," gaining over 7,000 retweets and 82,000 likes in two days (shown below).

Spread

The tweet quickly inspired similar variations over the following few days. On January 19th, 2022, Twitter user @ryanbailey25^[3] made the joke with the cast of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, gaining over 240 likes in two days (shown below, left). The same day, user @Dobrenkz^[4] made the joke with the case of Dinosaurs, gaining over 150 likes in a similar timeframe (shown below, right).

Other high engagement examples include a tweet showing a Door Stacking Sorority Chant posted by @anya_likesdawg^[5] that gained over 8,000 retweets and 143,000 likes (shown below, left) and a tweet by @ejdickson^[6] that showed Too Many Cooks, gaining over 240 likes (shown below, right).