Diary of a (secondline) clinicianIt is a truth universally acknowledged in the internet age that an event noted by at least two people will soon become a meme. And I don't mean a meme in the true definitional sense, but the sense that language purists hate us all for, some mash-up of an over-used picture with heading text that commits all sort of type-setting and often a few grammar sins. So when the greatest existential threat to modern life as we know it came along, the memes virtually wrote themselves. "some mash-up of an over-used picture with heading text that commits all sort of type-setting and often a few grammar sins" Memes about not being able to leave the house, memes about world leaders, memes about bats and pangolins, memes conflating virology and beer-brewing, and yes, innumerable memes about toilet paper. You would think then that these memes served some purpose, pushed us towards some common goal. And yet you don't have to look far to find people decrying the viral spread of these memes as something about which to be very concerned. Reports of racism and discrimination in memes is of course disturbing and even a pandemic is no excuse for hate of any form towards our fellow man. Beyond this, even seemingly harmless memes are denounced as 'making light of something that kills people' or as 'mocking those who've lost their lives' "You would think then that these memes served some purpose, pushed us towards some common goal." But as one of my favourite childhood authors described, we are very good at rapidly making the extraordinary seem ordinary, in order to deal with it. Human cerebral adaptation, better known as just getting on with things is one of the remarkable features of human imagination that set us apart from other mammals. Thus memes, offensive as they may be to some, could be conceived as a way of normalising the COVID-19 pandemic in order to cope with it. If it's something we can make light of using internet culture in the same way we seem to make light of everything these days, then it's something we can deal with, and no longer the imminent existential threat that stuns us all into inaction. Discussions about the balance between speech freedom and the risk of being offended aside, COVID-19 memes are likely a sign of the human race adapting to and dealing with the set of circumstances few of us have previously found ourselves in. Whatever else you may say about humans, we're rather good at adapting.
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