Category: Pandemic

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.

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/.

Tags variant

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:

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.

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.

Tags app, ping

Pandemic Pandemic Movie

7 Days

Post author By theauthor2022
Post date July 17, 2022
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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:

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.

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).

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

Tags covid-19

Pandemic Virus

Flurona

Flurona – the name sounds scary but it’s not a new variant of Covid-19. It’s a word that was coined by the Israeli Outbreak Management Advisory Team in late 2020 when two pregnant woman were diagnosed with both Covid-19 and the flu (Stern).

On 5 January 2022 Dictionary.com added Flurona to its list of Technology and Science terms:

Flurona is an informal term for a case in which a person is simultaneously infected with both the flu and the COVID-19 virus. Flurona refers to a double infection (or co-infection)—two simultaneous but separate infections. It is not a single disease or a new strain of COVID-19.

Flurona is clearly a cause for concern for the medical community as rising numbers of influenza cases and another wave of Covid-19 have the potential to overwhelm hospitals. When news broke of “flurona” many were concerned as an article in the The Washington Post states that “people around the world kicked off 2022 by searching for more information about ‘flurona,’ after Israel reported that two young pregnant women had tested positive for both the coronavirus and the flu” (Hassan).

Here’s a useful video that goes into more detail about what Flurona is and how you can minimize your risk of catching both Covid-19 and influenza:

Social Media Trends as of June 26, 2022

Facebook #flurona: 11,000 people are posting about this
Instagram #flurona: 9,210 posts
TikTok #flurona: 47.7 million views
YouTube #flurona: 508 videos and 334 channels

Google Trends: flurona appeared during the last week of December 2021 and peaked a week later at the beginning of 2022 as many people searched online for information about this condition.

Sources:

Art N More. “New disease, Flurona, double infection of covid and flu” image. Adobe.com. File no: 477861400.

“Flurona.” Dictionary.com. URL: https://www.dictionary.com/e/tech-science/flurona/.

Hassan, Jennifer. “What is ‘flurona’? Coronavirus and influenza co-infections reported as omicron surges.” The Washington Post. January 5, 2022. URL: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/01/05/flurona-coronavirus-flu-symptoms/.

Stern, Aryeh. “Israel reports first case of ‘Flurona’.” Hamodia.com. December 30, 2021. URL: https://hamodia.com/2021/12/30/israel-reports-first-case-of-flurona/.

USA Today. “‘Flurona’: What to know about co-infections with COVID-19 and the flu.” YouTube. January 5, 2022. URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r6t8GQ2HhM.

Tags flu

Pandemic Pandemic Art

The Great Realization

Post author By theauthor2022
Post date June 26, 2022
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We now call it the Great Realisation
And yes, since then there have been many.
But that’s the story of how it started,
And why hindsight’s 2020.

Tomos Roberts

On 29 April 2020 a bedtime story about the pandemic was uploaded to YouTube and quickly went viral for its brilliant story telling, imaginative content and message of hope for everyone living through this once-in-a-century event. The popularity of the poem soon skyrocketed and the luxury and lifestyle magazine Condé Nast Traveller published an article about it on May 11, 2020:

Chances are you’ve seen “The Great Realisation” by UK poet @probablytomfoolery, in which he reads aloud what might be the greatest fairytale of our times. The video, set in a post-COVID19 world and uploaded on 29 April, has been viewed over 30 million times across platforms, and the poem has been transcribed into several languages. Creator Tomos Roberts has requests for a children’s book from publishing houses and even Hollywood’s Jake Gyllenhaal.

The Great Realization is more than two years old and continues to inspire hearts and minds. You can watch it on YouTube here:

The poem was published as a book and is available from Amazon.

After more than two years of lockdowns, quarantine, travel restrictions and remote working, perhaps we will discover the truth of what Tomas meant when he wrote the following:

“And so when we found the cure,
and were allowed to go outside
We all preferred the world we found,
to the one we left behind
Old habits became extinct,
and they made way for the new
And every simple act of kindness,
was now given its due.“

Social Media Trends as of June 26, 2022

The hashtag #thegreatrealization produced erroneous results and generally didn’t have anything to do with the poem, however, the book’s front cover says the video has been viewed 60 million times.

Google Trends: “the great realization” as a search term registered about a week after the movie was uploaded to YouTube. Its popularity peaked during the week of May 3, 2020. The video has since been viewed over 7 million times.

Sources:

Ancheri, Saumya. “Tomfoolery’s viral bedtime story about the pandemic.” Condé Nest Traveller. 11 May 2020. URL: https://www.cntraveller.in/story/heres-the-twist-to-probably-tomfoolerys-viral-bedtime-story-about-the-pandemic/.

Probably Tomfoolery. “The Great Realisation.” You Tube. April 29, 2020. URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nw5KQMXDiM4.

Tags bedtime story

Pandemic Virus

Twindemic

Twindemic first appeared in an article written for the New York Times on August 16, 2020. Jan Hoffman, who writes about behavioral health, referred to a nightmare scenario that would give public health officials chills – the combination of Covid 19 and “a severe flu season, resulting in a twindemic.” Health experts worried that people choosing not to get the flu shot would make matters worse if they got both respiratory illnesses together. Some people worried that getting the flu shot would make them more susceptible to getting Covid-19.

The term was added to Dictionary.com on September 9, 2020 and here’s the definition:

The term twindemic blends twin, here meaning “twofold” or “double,” and pandemic, a global outbreak of a disease, such as COVID-19. In other words, a twindemic represents “twin pandemics” of flu and COVID-19 at the same time. Twindemic may also be informed by a word closely related to pandemic, epidemic—a term for a widespread but more temporary disease outbreak that is often used in the context of seasonal influenza (flu, for short) outbreaks.

The term spread as quickly as the virus and appeared in various publications round the world. As recently as June 24, 2022 an article appeared in the New Zealand publication Stuff that described the country as being “in the grip of a ‘twindemic’ as a severe flu season combines with Covid-19 to put stress on the health system and leave workplaces with staff off sick” (MdConald) Nikkei Asia published a news article on June 19, 2022 declaring that “Australia is seeing a surge in flu cases even as the country continues to contend with the coronavirus, creating the specter of a ‘twindemic’ health crisis experts have been warning about” (Koshikawa).

NBC New York uploaded a video to YouTube on November 9, 2021 which discusses the chances of a “twindemic” happening. Watch closely as medical experts tell you what you need to know.

Social Media Trends as of June 18, 2022

Facebook #twindemic: 1,300 people are posting about this
Instagram #twindemic: 1,375 posts
TikTok #twindemic: 1.6 million views
YouTube #twindemic: less than 100 videos and channels

Google Trends: twindemic appeared during the week of August 16, 2020 when Jan Hoffman used the term in an article published that very week in the New York Times. The popularity of the term tailed off for a while but peaked in October 2021 as the Omicron variant spread quickly throughout the world in a second wave of the pandemic during the flu season.

Sources:

Dzmitry. “Pandemic or twindemic symbol” image. Adobe.com. File no: 465531514.

Hoffman, Jan. “Fearing a ‘Twindemic,’ Health Experts Push Urgently for Flu Shots.” New York Times. August 16, 2020. URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/
08/16/health/coronavirus-flu-vaccine-twindemic.html.

Koshikawa, Noriaki. “Australia faces ‘twindemic’ threat as flu and COVID collide.” Nikkei Asia. June 19, 2022. URL: https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Coronavirus/
Australia-faces-twindemic-threat-as-flu-and-COVID-collide.

MacDonald, Liz. “‘Twindemic’ takes toll on health sector, schools and businesses as flu overtakes Covid-19.” Stuff. June 24, 2022. URL: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/
health/129061676/twindemic-takes-toll-on-health-sector-schools-and-businesses-as-flu-overtakes-covid19.

NBC New York. “Covid and the Flu: Could We Face a ‘Twindemic’? NYC Experts Weigh In | NBC New York.” YouTube. November 9, 2021. URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMLENhB_8Vc.

“Twindemic.” Dictionary.com. September 9, 2020. URL: https://www.dictionary.com/e/
tech-science/twindemic/.

Pandemic Vaccine

Vaxhole

Move over “vaxinista,” here comes the “vaxhole.” This nasty insult was written about in an article published for the New York Daily News on March 4, 2021. “OK, New Yorkers, get vaccinated, but don’t be a “vaxhole” about it,” says columnist Brian Niemietz. The word “vaxhole” has two meanings – the first refers to an entry in the Urban Dictionary describing vaxhole as a person “who has been fully vaccinated for the COVID-19 virus and brags about it.” Niemitetz says: “the newly defined word was added to the crowdsourced site just before March got underway, but aggregate site Fark.com introduced it to a wider audience Tuesday – the same day New York State lowered the age of those qualified for inoculations to 30.” The second definition of vaxhole is a person who cheats “the system to get vaccinated before their demographic is legally eligible.”

In April 2021 Stephanie Sengwe published an article for Purewow.com entitled “You Got Your Vaccine (Yay!)—Just Don’t Be a *Vaxhole* About It.” Sengwe describes different types of “vaxholes” from people who post selfies with their Covid-19 vaccine cards to those who “might brag about getting the Pfizer shot and put down a friend who got Johnson & Johnson.” A major vaxhole is someone who goes to crowded public spaces without wearing a mask because they think they’re immune from getting Covid-19 but they make those around them who are following the rules very uncomfortable. How does one avoid being a vaxhole? Senge advises “always refer to the pros (medical professionals and the CDC) and if you don’t want to be a vaxhole, respect the safety rules wherever you are (whether it’s a grocery store or an airplane).”

On December 8, 2021, the actress Jennifer Anniston said in an interview that she was called a “liberal Vax-hole” because of her pro-vaccine stance. An article published for the political magazine The Hill reports Anniston saying “‘You know, someone literally called me a ‘liberal Vax-hole’ the other day,’ the ‘Morning Show’ and former ‘Friends’ star told The Hollywood Reporter in an interview published Wednesday. ‘I don’t understand the disconnect right now,’ Aniston said, ‘being bullied for wanting people not to be sick? I mean, that’s what we’re talking about‘” (Kurtz).

Social Media Trends as of June 17, 2022

Facebook #vaxhole: people are posting about this
Instagram #vaxhole: 1,208 posts
TikTok #vaxhole: 550,200 views
YouTube #vaxhole: less than 100 videos and channels

Google Trends: vaxhole first appeared as a tiny blip during the week of February 7, 2021 probably around the time when vaccines became widely available. The term peaked in popularity during March 14, 2021 before tailing off.

Sources:

Kurtz, Judy. “Jennifer Aniston says she’s been called a ‘liberal Vax-hole’ over pro-vaccine stance.” The Hill. December 8, 2021. URL: https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/584878-jennifer-aniston-says-shes-been-called-a-liberal-vax-hole-over/.

“Vaxholes, vaxholes everywhere” Buzz Lightyear meme. MemeCreator.org. URL: https://www.memecreator.org/meme/vaxholes-vaxholes-everywhere/.

Niemietz, Brian. “Urban Dictionary has a word for people who boast about being vaccinated: ‘vaxholes’.” New York Daily News. March 30, 2021. URL: https://www.nydailynews.com/coronavirus/ny-covid-vaxhole-urban-dictionary-vaccinated-20210330-kehubu27ajhudps5pawwoleu5e-story.html.

P F Cool. “Vaxhole.” Urban Dictionary. March 1, 2021. URL: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=vaxhole.

Sengwe, Stephanie. “You Got Your Vaccine (Yay!)—Just Don’t Be a *Vaxhole* About It.” PureWow.com. April 29, 2021. URL: https://www.purewow.com/wellness/vaxhole.

The Word Is channel. “Vaxhole.” You Tube. URL: https://www.youtube.com/
shorts/k3JDni-Yhgs.

Tags virtue signalling

Pandemic

Vaxinista

Last summer’s trend was social media virtue signaling by vaxinistas – persons who’ve had both jabs and broadcast their vaccine selfies on Facebook and Instagram with their immunization cards while wearing vaccine merchandise. They can be found at the mall and in restaurants and are not difficult to spot.

The word Vaxinista is a combination of fashionista and vaccine. The Urban Dictionary defines vaxinista as “a person who gets the vaccine and flaunts it with high end shopping, trips, and parties.

– Once Lisa got the vax she turned into such a vaxinista” (M. Wolly).

An article entitled “Got the jab, bought the T-shirt: ‘vaxinistas’ and the rise of pandemic merchandise” appeared in the 15 June 2021 digital issue of The Guardian and explains the collecting and wearing of pharmaceutical merchandise:

“The pandemic has sent us into a frenzy of collecting, but not for obvious reasons,” says Dr Dimitrios Tsivrikos, a consumer and business psychologist at UCL. “People think these items might be valuable in 10 years’ time – but they’re also buying them as a way of taking control of – or even marking – what has been a very difficult situation.”
Merchandise, and in particular slogan tees and pins, has been an expression of its wearers’ values for years. Vaccine merch serves a very particular purpose: at a time of wearing your political values on your sleeve, it gives physical form to a historic moment that would otherwise be forgotten, perhaps save your vaccine sticker. Like punters buying band merchandise after a concert, it’s a way of saying I was there, says Tsivrikos. “People are trying to be a part of the conversation. Wearing something is not just about fashion; it’s a reflection of the situation and, in this instance, even taking a pro-vaccination position.”

The April 15, 2021 edition of the South Florida Sun Sentinel said that vaxinistas “[take] COVID seriously but treat the achievement of immunity as just another high-status consumer item to be thrown in the face of their friends, or ‘friends,’ like a new BMW X3 or the admission of their offspring into a competitive college” (Fleshler).

Relaks radio presenter, Sarah, produced a video called “Rise of the Vaxinista” which was uploaded to YouTube on 8 July 2021. She talks about the latest trend of vaxinistas broadcasting their vaccine status using pharmaceutical merchandise such as T-shirts featuring the logos of companies that produce Covid-19 vaccines such as Pfizer and Astra Zeneca. Some of this merchandise is selling for hundreds of pounds on sites such as eBay.

Vaccine merchandise proliferated during 2021 as people proudly showed off their vaccinated status by wearing T-shirts, bracelets and caps. The photo below is a Vaxinista T-shirt available from Amazon.

Vaxinista T-shirt available on Amazon for men and women

Social Media Trends as of June 12, 2022

Facebook #vaxinista: people are posting about this
Instagram #vaxinista: 30 posts
TikTok #vaxinista: 732 views

Google Trends: vaxinista first appeared during the week of April 11, 2021 which probably coincided around the time that vaccines first became widely available. Many people were posting pictures of themselves getting the first and second vaccine shots and some posted pictures of their Covid-19 immunization cards.

Sources:

Ferrier, Morwenna. “Got the jab, bought the T-shirt: ‘vaxinistas’ and the rise of pandemic merchandise.” The Guardian. 15 June 2021. URL: https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2021/jun/15/got-the-jab-bought-the-t-shirt-vaxinistas-and-the-rise-of-pandemic-merchandise.

Fleshler, David. “Meet the latest COVID annoyance: The vaxinista.” South Florida Sun Sentinel. April 15, 2021. URL: https://www.sun-sentinel.com/coronavirus/vaccines/fl-ne-covid-vaxinista-ss-prem-20210415-dtihyumhvvg2pd7tf2ey27sxey-story.html.

M. Wolly. “Vaxinista.” Urban Dictionary. March 23, 2021. URL: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=vaxinista.

Relaks Radio. “The rise of the Vaxinista!” YouTube. July 8, 2021. URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZZLxLKH5x4.

Vaxinista Tag. “Vaxinista – Vaxxed Vaccinated 2021 Rainbow T-Shirt” image. Amazon.com. URL: https://www.amazon.com/Vaxinista-Vaxxed-Vaccinated-Rainbow-T-Shirt/dp/B0963K7RJ8.

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