Month: July 2022

Categories
Pandemic Virus

Before Times

There was a time in the not so distant past where Covid-19 and Coronavirus weren’t even words. The pandemic, lockdowns and viral escape mutants were the imagination of script writers for dystopian movies. These were the “Before Times,” a nostalgic expression referring to the way things used to be. A time when you could travel on a plane without wearing a mask and be served a meal. A time when you didn’t have to stand “six feet apart” from the person in front of you at the grocery checkout. It was a time when people could freely go to bars, pubs, parties and sporting events without having to worry about catching the ‘Rona and thinking about contact tracing.

Dictionary.com defines Before Times as follows:

Before Times is generally used in discussions that contrast the lasting and far-reaching effects (especially negative effects) of the pandemic to the way things were before it. It’s typically used in a way that’s intended to be at least somewhat (darkly) humorous, perhaps likening the world after the start of the pandemic to a postapocalyptic dystopia.

Example: I’ve been in my house hiding from Covid for so long that I can’t even remember what it was like in the Before Times.

The term Before Times was popularized by the COVID-19 pandemic. It was used in reference to the prepandemic world from the very beginning of the pandemic in early 2020, but its origins are unrelated -and much earlier. The initial spread of the phrase and variations of it is often attributed to the science fiction TV show Star Trek, which used a version of the term in a 1966 episode [Miri]. In the episode, a group of children use the term before time to refer to life before a plague killed most of their planet’s population.

“Before Times” has appeared in a few online news articles. A recent piece written for Fortune magazine that discusses remote working says “while coming into work at all is tepidly popular, coming in on Fridays borders on the unthinkable…the flexibility of our remote-work era might have made the Before Times summer Friday perk redundant, mused Fortune’s Trey Williams. ‘When your boss isn’t sitting in the same room as you, who’s to know if you start happy hour a little earlier on a Friday?” he wrote'” (Thier).

As recently as July 29, 2022 the term appeared in the online SFist newsletter: “If you had told me in the Before Times that San Francisco hotels would be clamoring to let homeless people crash in their rooms on someone else’s dime, I would have asked where I could score some of that Grandpappy Kush you’ve been smoking” (Kukura).

YouTube channel Stuck in the Middle produced a video in October 2021 discussing CNN’s use of the term Before Times. Make of it what you will.

Social Media Trends as of July 24, 2022

Facebook #beforetimes: people are posting about this
Instagram #beforetimes: 7,941 posts
TikTok #beforetimes: 1.8 million views

Google Trends: “before times” appeared in late December 2019 and the search popularity increased after lockdown began in March 2020.

before times search term

Sources:

“Before Times.” Dictionary.com. March 3, 2022. URL: https://www.dictionary.com/e/slang/the-before-times/#:~:text=Before%20Times%20is%20an%20informal,as%20in%20the%20Before%20Times..

Kukura, Joe. “As Shelter-In-Place Hotel Program Winds Down, Residents and Managers Look Back on Whether it Actually Worked.” SFist.com. July 29, 2022. URL: https://sfist.com/2022/07/29/as-shelter-in-place-hotel-program-winds-down-residents-and-managers-look-back-on-whether-it-actually-worked/.

Stuck in the Middle channel. “CNN Uses Phrase “Before Times” with no explanation or definition.” YouTube. October 11, 2021. URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORqWYfozXZ4.

Thier, Jane. “It’s Friday: The day you’re not in the office and probably never will be again.” Fortune.com. July 15, 2022. URL: https://fortune.com/2022/07/15/empty-office-fridays-nearly-extinct-remote-work/.

Categories
Pandemic Pandemic Art Virus

Pingdemic

Pingdemic is a British term that appeared in the summer of 2021 and is defined by Collins dictionary as “the large-scale notification of members of the public by a contact-tracing app” – hence the “ping.”

The NHS COVID-19 app is used in England and Wales and it works by calculating the “time and distance between mobile devices via Bluetooth, counting 15 minutes spent within two metres as close contact between users (Kent). If someone tests positive for coronavirus, their test result can be shared anonymously with those they come into contact with which results in people receiving a “ping” notification that they should isolate for ten days.

You can imagine the chaos this would have on businesses as millions of people get pinged whenever they’re in close contact with someone who tested positive for Covid-19. Many companies struggled to stay open as employees were forced to go into quarantine and self isolate.

An article published in the Financial Times on July 21, 2021 said that 600,000 people were “were ordered to self-isolate by the NHS Covid-19 app in the week to July 14 as worker shortages caused by the latest wave of the pandemic in the UK threatened to disrupt food and fuel supplies” (Tim Bradshaw, Jim Pickard and David Sheppard). The number of pings from the NHS app rose by 17% from the prior week likely due to the increase in Covid cases. The article points out that “British business leaders have become increasingly agitated about the impact of the ‘pingdemic’ on staffing, which has exacerbated existing problems caused by Brexit and a shortage of lorry [truck] drivers.”

As usual, people get creative in times of distress. James Partridge, a British singer, teacher, composer and pianist uploaded a YouTube short video which he created called the “Pingdemic” song:

courtesy of Bagwold

Social Media Trends as of July 23, 2022

Instagram #pingdemic: 1,434 posts
TikTok #pingdemic: 993.800 views
YouTube #pingdemic: less than 100 videos and channels

Google Trends: pingdemic first appeared during the week of July 18, 2021. but the popularity of the search term quickly lost interest – probably because this is a British search term. By the end of the August 2021 it no longer registered.

pingdemic search term


Sources:

Bagwold. “Pingdemic Covid-19 test and trace app” vector image. Dreamstime. URL: 225083478.

Kent, Chloe. “Tracking Covid-19: what does the ‘pingdemic’ mean for the pandemic?” Medical Device Network.com. July 28, 2021. URL: https://www.medicaldevice-network.com/analysis/pingdemic/.

Partridge, James B. “Pingdemic” song. YouTube. URL: https://youtube.com/shorts/B0CpbjZPiD4?feature=share.

“Pingdemic.” Collins Dictionary. URL: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/pingdemic.

Tim Bradshaw, Jim Pickard and David Sheppard. “UK ‘pingdemic’ spreads as record 600,000 people told to self-isolate.” Financial Times. July 22, 2021. URL: https://www.ft.com/content/1bdef6b5-672d-46e0-9502-492a432a51af.

Categories
Pandemic Pandemic Movie

7 Days

7 Days is a romantic comedy of the pandemic genre that premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on June 10, 2021.

Ravi and Rita are two young Indian-Americans on a pre-arranged date organized by their strict parents who are very traditional. Ravi is boring, repressed, lacks confidence in girls and gets his advice from his mother whom he is very close to but he does good character impersonations. He is looking for a traditional Indian girl and wants three children. Rita is the exact opposite. She eats meat, drinks alcohol, prefers her own company and has no interest in getting married. What initially started off as a failed date ends up with both of them getting closer as a result of Covid-19, lockdown and shelter-in-place orders which forces the two of them to live together for seven days.

One movie reviewer says the film “is a good reminder that characters don’t have to like each other a whole lot for their actors to have great chemistry…7 Days has an overall sweetness that keeps it charismatic for its 85-minute runtime [and] joins the limited ranks of Good Covid-Era Cinema, and applies certain anxieties about the period of shelter-in-place creatively, without manipulation. That is no small feat; neither is making some movie magic out of two actors dancing around the question that, when just elusive enough, always makes for a good story: Will they or won’t they?” (Allen).

Production began during 2020 and filming took eight days. The movie was directed by Roshan Sethi and stars Karan Soni and Geraldine Viswanathan. It won “Best Narrative Feature awards at the San Diego Asian Film Festival and the Coronado Island Film Festival” (Wikipedia). You can watch the trailer below:

courtesy of IMDB

Social Media Trends as of July 16, 2022

Facebook #7daysfilm: people are posting about this
Instagram #7daysfilm: 30 posts


Sources:

7 Days image. IMDB. URL: https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BZmE0ZGE1NWMtNDY2OC00ZDY5LTliOWYtOWMxYzU1OWI1YTRhXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTY0ODExMzQ@._V1_.jpg.

7 Days. Wikipedia. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_Days_(2021_film).

Allen, Nick. “7 Days.” Rogerebert.com. March 25, 2022. URL: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/7-days-movie-review-2022.

Cinedigm channel. “7 DAYS | Official Trailer.” YouTube. March 4, 2022. URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGdmJMLu-Kg.

Categories
Pandemic Pandemic Art

Coronacation

When the pandemic started in March 2020 it gave most of us something we lack – time on our hands. Some devoted this extra time to self-care, others (like me) used the time to work on projects around the house. I built a gym in my basement. Despite the frustrations of lockdown and quarantine, the experience has been offset by the advantages that come with remote working. Not having to commute and being able to work anywhere sometimes felt like a staycation (Ho).

The term appeared in the Urban Dictionary on April 5, 2020: “Getting paid to be off of work and having nothing to do or nowhere to go.

-The trip I took to Puerto Vallarta and got stung by a sting ray beats the hell out of this coronacation I’m on. This sucks!” (Casper 70).

Coroncation appeared as a new word suggestion in the Collins Dictionary on August 20, 2020 courtesy of LexicalItem.

a prolonged period at home away from one’s normal place of work, study, etc. viewed as an obligatory holiday imposed by stringent COVID-19 restrictions. b) a holiday or vacation taken during the period of the COVID-19 pandemic. (c) indicating disapproval: holidaying to or vacationing in a destination where the risk of contracting COVID-19 still persists to take advantage of abnormally favourable travel, accommodation, etc. rates reduced because of the downturn in tourism caused by the pandemic.

Coroncation found its way into news articles. Jenna Intersimone who writes for Bridgewater Courier News, encouraged readers to “take a mini ‘coronacation’ by driving by these NJ landmarks.”

Some people got creative during their “coronacation.” There are a number of “Coroncation song” videos on YouTube but this one had the most views (over 5,000) and shows teachers singing a song of encouragement to their students who are virtual learning. The producer describes it as “a video to encourage students to work hard while learning at home. And to let them know that their teachers love them!” (Hamlin).

courtesy of Make a Meme

Social Media Trends as of July 10, 2022

Facebook #coronacation: 36,000 people are posting about this
Instagram #coronacation: 195,131 posts
TikTok #coronacation: 516.9 million views
YouTube #coronacation: 515 videos and 233 channels

Google Trends: coronacation first appeared during the last week of March 8, 2020 which coincided with lockdown. The popularity of the term peaked the following week and then tailed off that summer.

coronacation search term

Sources:

Casper70. “Coronacation.” Urban Dictionary. April 5, 2020. URL: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Coronacation.

“Coronacation.” MakeAMeme.org. URL: https://makeameme.org/meme/coronacation-428266aacb.

Hamlin, Katie. “Coronacation Song.” YouTube. March 17, 2020. URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to-LlG9EUB4.

Ho, Sally. “Coronavirus Vocabulary: 8 Slang Words You Need To Know During The Pandemic.” GreenQueen.com. April 29, 2020. URL: https://www.greenqueen.com.hk/coronavirus-vocabulary-8-slang-words-you-need-to-know-during-the-pandemic-2/.

Intersimone, Jenna. “Take a mini ‘coronacation’ by driving by these NJ landmarks.” MyCentralJersey.com. May 13, 2020. URL: https://www.mycentraljersey.com/story/things-to-do/2020/05/13/new-jersey-landmarks-day-trips-road-trips-coronavirus/5176172002/.

LexicalItem. “Coronacation.” Collins Dictionary. August 20, 2020. URL: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/submission/22664/coronacation.

Categories
Pandemic Pandemic Art Virus

Patient Zero

Patient zero refers to an individual who becomes the first known case of an outbreak of a communicable disease in a specific geographical location. The term isn’t a new one, but in context of the pandemic, it refers to the first person diagnosed with Covid-19.

Merriam Websters dictionary defines patient zero as “a person identified as the first to become infected with an illness or disease in an outbreak.

-The quest to find patient zero, the first person to contract the new virus, has revealed the first known case occurred in Wuhan.”

An article published for the BBC on 23 February 2020 says: “As the cases of coronavirus increase in China and around the world, the hunt is on to identify ‘patient zero’…Chinese authorities originally reported that the first coronavirus case was on 31 December [2019] and many of the first cases of the pneumonia-like infection were immediately connected to a seafood and animal market in Wuhan, in the Hubei province” (Duarte).

Before the Trump administration restricted travel from China, it’s likely that Covid-19 was already spreading throughout the United States. The first person to be diagnosed with coronavirus was a man who tested positive in Seattle, Washington, on 21 January 2020. He had previously traveled from Wuhan, China, where the pandemic began. There was an outbreak of coronavirus in a nursing home outside of Seattle and cases soared. Washington state reported on 29 February 2020 its first death from Covid-19 which may have been the first pandemic death in the United States (Singh).

In March 2022 an independent film produced the movie “Coronavirus: Patient Zero (2020)” and uploaded it to YouTube. A Washington state clinic sees a large number of patients, “suffering from a new outbreak of illness, Dr. Stone (Tim Ross), the head physician, tries to understand the cause and who is Patient Zero as the CDC moves in to quarantine the clinic in a desperate attempt to stop the spread” (Coronavirus: Patient Zero).

courtesy of Make a Meme

Social Media Trends as of June 30, 2022

Facebook #patientzero: 3,600 people are posting about this
YouTube #patientzero: 320 videos and 196 channels

Google Trends: patient zero appeared during the first week of December 2019 when the pandemic started in Wuhan, China. It reached its peak during the week of March 15, 2020 which also coincided with a national lockdown in the United States.

patient zero search term

Sources:

“Coronavirus: Patient Zero (2020) | Full Movie | Tim Ross | Samantha Melvin | Bobby Lacer.” YouTube. March 19, 2022. URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXBH6qTd804.

Duarte, Fernando. “Who is ‘patient zero’ in the coronavirus outbreak?” BBC.com. 23 February 2020. URL: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200221-coronavirus-the-harmful-hunt-for-covid-19s-patient-zero.

“Have you seen patient zero? – #COVID-19” MakeAMeme.org. URL: https://makeameme.org/meme/have-you-seen-2486856420.

“Patient Zero.” Merriam Webster. URL: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/patient%20zero.

Singh, Maanvi. “Tracing ‘patient zero’: why America’s first coronavirus death may for ever go unmarked.” The Guardian. 26 May 2020. URL: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/26/us-coronavirus-patient-zero-100000-deaths.