We've Got a Hole In the Deck

Submission 1,817

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About

We've Got a Hole In the Deck is a reaction image and exploitable meme format utilizing a political comic by Russian artist Eva Morozova in which a boat captain exclaims to his passengers that there's a hole in the deck and each passenger comments on it, with the comments ultimately brushing off the hole, offering excuses as to why they shouldn't react to it and criticizing the captain for suggesting the hole is a problem. The comic is meant as a statement on the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, specifically commenting on reports that the Russian media is not allowed to refer to the invasion as a war. The comic was originally published online in March 2022 and became the subject of memes over the following years in which the captions and overall context are altered. It has also been shared as a reaction used to portray similar situations of ignoring a problem.

Origin

On March 16th, 2022, Russian artist Eva Morozova posted a Russian-language comic to Instagram^[1] in which the captain of a sinking ship announces to his passengers, "People, we've got a hole in the deck!" The passengers each make a comment regarding the hole and the captain's statement, either brushing the hole off, criticizing the captain for implying the hole is a problem or generally playing dumb to the situation (shown below, left). The post gained over 210,000 likes in two years. Purportedly, the comic is a comment on reports that Russia would not allow the media or schools to refer to the war in Ukraine as a war.^[2]^[3]

On March 18th, 2022, Imgur^[4] user candiedyms posted a translated version of the comic, gaining over 1,500 upvotes in two years. Later, in 2023, Morozova posted the comic to her own English-translated Instagram^[5] page with a more accurate translation (shown below, right).

Spread

The comic gained viral spread on social media over the following years, both as a reaction image and comment on similar situations and as an exploitable format, in which the image is photoshopped to alter the context.

On March 18th, 2022, it was reposted to /r/collapse,^[6] a subreddit about "the potential collapse of global civilization," garnering over 5,200 upvotes in two years. On March 20th it was posted to /r/COMPLETEANARCHY,^[7] titled, "They Always Have a Reason Why They Can't Directly Act," garnering over 2,300 upvotes in the same span of time. On May 3rd, 2023, it was posted to /r/ontario^[8] as a criticism of the Canadian government in regard to Ontario, Canada, garnering over 2,900 upvotes in a year (shown below).

On June 19th, 2024, an edit of the comic was posted by the Mysteriously Sad Memes for Aging Millennials Facebook^[9] page, in which the comments are changed to include examples of Gen Z and Gen Alpha slang terms, garnering around 30 reactions and 80 shares in a month (shown below).

The meme gained viral spread and was reposted numerous times over the following weeks, including by Facebook^[10] page One Million Gamers on June 20th, garnering over 1,900 reactions in two weeks and by Instagram^[11] user meaningful_incellectuals_only on June 23rd, garnering over 5,000 likes in the same rough span of time. That same day it was posted to /r/PeterExplainsTheJoke^[12] and by X^[13] user @interpretantion, garnering over 10,000 upvotes on the former and 11,000 on the latter in two weeks.

On July 8th, it was reposted to /r/PeterExplainsTheJoke,^[14] garnering over 1,300 upvotes in under a day.