COVID-19 in Memes: The Adaptive Response of Societies to the Pandemic?

COVID-19 expanded rapidly throughout the world, with enormous health, social, and economic consequences. Mental health is the most affected by extreme negative emotions and stress, but it has been an underestimated part of human life during the pandemic. We hypothesized that people may have responded to the pandemic spontaneously with increased interest in and creation of funny internet memes. Using Google and Google Trends, we revealed that the number of and interest in funny internet memes related to COVID-19 exploded during the spring 2020 lockdown. The interest in coronavirus memes was positively correlated with interest in mortality due to COVID-19 on a global scale, and positively associated with the real number of deaths and cases reported in different countries. We compared content of a random sample of 200 coronavirus memes with a random sample of 200 non-coronavirus memes found on the Internet. The sentiment analysis showed that coronavirus memes had a similar proportion of positive and negative words compared to non-coronavirus memes. However, an internet questionnaire revealed that coronavirus memes gained higher funniness scores than a random sample of non-coronavirus memes. Our results confirm that societies may have turned to humor to cope with the threat of SARS-CoV-2.

Automated summary

COVID-19 has had a significant impact on health, society, and the economy worldwide. Mental health, often overlooked during the pandemic, bears the brunt of extreme negative emotions and stress. This study used Google and Google Trends to investigate the increased interest in and creation of funny internet memes related to COVID-19 during the spring 2020 lockdown. The findings revealed a positive correlation between interest in coronavirus memes and global interest in COVID-19 mortality rates, as well as the reported deaths and cases in different countries. In comparing the content of coronavirus memes with non-coronavirus memes, sentiment analysis showed a similar proportion of positive and negative words, while an internet questionnaire revealed that coronavirus memes were rated as funnier than non-coronavirus memes.