Send dank memes in the name of science

It’s been a minute since the world was hit by a new crisis in the shape of COVID-19. Yes, it’s bizarre time, and humans are mostly doing all they can to keep the pandemic at bay. 

People have resorted to dousing themselves in hand-sanitiser, self-isolating and panic buying toilet paper. Being the squishy meat sacks we are, we’ve even started coping by sharing memes, sometimes completely insensitive, and sometimes very wholesome. Now, scientists want you to send them the best corona-themed memes around.

“In times of crisis and disaster, new forms of humor emerge. This phenomenon of “disaster humor” is not new. For instance, there were jokes about the Titanic (1912), about the explosion of the Space Shuttle (1986), about the attacks of September 11th (2001) – and now there are jokes about the Corona crisis,” writes Giselle Kuiper, a sociology professor at the Catholic University Leuven (Belgium). 

Smart people over at the University of Amsterdam and KU Leuven have extended an invitation to share COVID-19-related memes and jokes for research purposes. No, this is not a meme in and of itself. This is science. 

The researchers have started a collection of memes, jokes, funny tweets — just about anything humans can use as comic relief during this time of disaster and isolation. 

Are you already in possession of a whole folder of dank memes named ‘Corona-memes’ featuring classics like the Corona beer memes? Head here to file your scientific contributions, and you can read more about the study here.