chernobyl

It's wild to think that world-changing historical events can be summed up into silly little image macros. I wonder what Marie Antoinette would say if she could see herself depicted in a chad doge vs. virgin cheems meme. It's fun to imagine how memelords a century from now might meme this 'unprecedented time' we're currently experiencing. Will 2020 be an insignificant blip in history to humans of the deep future? Or will 2020 memes get all the upvotes on some futuristic version of r/historymemes? A lot to think about. For now we'll happily continue scrolling through dank history memes about past events.

In case anyone was still waiting for an April disaster to happen, perhaps this is it! 

For anyone not yet in the know, forest fires began burning on April 4th in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone in Ukraine. The fires came dangerously close to the site of the infamous Chernobyl disaster of 1986, and have released radioactive contamination into the air. The good news is that the fires have been contained, although the area has since been deemed the most polluted in the world. 

What else could go wrong in 2020!

"RIP But I'm Different" is a trending Twitter meme that started when Twitter user @stopitg tweeted that they would've been able to stop the Chernobyl disaster from happening, had they been there. Someone replied that his grandmother lived through it and was certainly NOT fine afterward, to which stopitg replied, "RIP to ur grandma but im different." 

The exchange has inspired countless parodies from others joking that they too could've stopped various events from happening. We've picked out some of our favorites for you below!

If you've ever had an x-ray, you've probably found it a bit odd that the doctors or x-ray technicians are quick to assure you of the procedure's safety, just before hiding behind a wall to complete the process. We're certainly not the first to believe that something doesn't add up, and that sentiment is being reflected in one of our new favorite meme trends. While scientifically speaking the occasional x-ray is harmless, memers in the r/dankmemes community and on Instagram are really milking anyone's doubt. And we're loving it.

It was no mystery to anyone that HBO's Chernobyl wasn't going to have a happy ending. The highly rated mini-series about the nuclear disaster, while insanely popular, is making a whole lot of people feel all kinds of bad. To cope with the utter bleakness of the television drama, many viewers are turning to Chernobyl memes that put a lighter spin on the depressing program. The strategy seems to be working, and the memes keep on coming. Here are some of the fresher Chernobyl memes that the internet has to offer. 

Chernobyl has been on the minds of pretty much everyone as the HBO drama regarding the nuclear disaster has become the most popular show on television. The program is being lauded as a bleak masterpiece by most critics. Unfortunately, this attention has done more than stimulate tv-watching brains and educate the masses. The show and disaster seem to have piqued the interest of attention-hungry Instagram "influencers," who have been taking some pretty heinous selfies in Pripyat, Ukraine. Thankfully, when people on Twitter see dumbasses, they're not afraid to call them out. And boy, are these roasts entertaining. 

These haunting photos show the aftermath of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. The incident occurred in the now-abandoned Pripyat, Ukraine and required the evacuation of 40,000 residents. All image context provided by Imgur user ex9gagger. 

EDIT: An HBO Mini-series about the Chernobyl Disaster was released in 2019 and as a result there were many Chernobyl memes that came out around that time as a result of people learning more about the worst nuclear disaster in history. Even Russian president Vladimir Putin's media had a tough time handling the exposure that the Chernobyl miniseries caused about an event that's been covered-up and hushed-up from the moment it happened. The continued Russian reluctance to recognizing the severity of the disaster, and constant Russian attempts to suppress information about the subsequent mishandling has caused a sort of Streisand Effect and added to the mystique and allure of the otherwise taboo subject. Russian authorities were so worried with the...wait for it...fallout (pun intended) that they made the disaster worse than had they just admitted their mistakes right away.