Alexis Vigario holds a stylus to her iPad, gradually shading in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s logo as BLACKPINK’s “How You Like That” plays in the background. The phrase “Outbreak In less than 30 days” is typed in black atop the university’s blue and white logo. She films herself as she draws, creating the first installment in her soon-to-be viral TikTok series: “COVID BINGO: University Edition.”
Next, Vigario shades in New York University’s deep purple hue alongside the school’s torch symbol, accompanied by another phrase – “Food/Water Crisis.”
Vigario, a fourth-year political science student at Rider University in New Jersey, uploaded the first “COVID BINGO: University Edition” video on Aug. 21. Since then, her TikTok account has amassed more than 90,000 followers. In each video, she shades in another square of her five-by-five bingo board, as universities across the country gradually fulfill her predictions, which range from “Full Tuition Refund” and “Bankruptcy” to “Outbreak caused By Greek houses.” The goal is to get five in a row while poking fun at the many follies of university reopenings.
When a new square is filled in, Vigario also includes articles in the video, detailing the university’s mishaps in handling COVID-19. Vigario’s own university kicked off its fall semester with erratic and inconsistent plans – one day Rider would claim in-person classes were beginning soon, and two days later the announcement would backtrack to virtual learning, she said.
“I was so mad at my school and my friends that were telling me about their schools and how they were handling it,” she said. “I was so frustrated, I was like, ‘I’m gonna prove that this is happening everywhere.’ It was surprisingly easy to get all the squares filled out, which is ridiculous.”
By September, Vigario’s videos became part of a larger “back-to-school” trend on TikTok. For example, NYU students shared videos of their meals, or lack thereof, delivered by the school to their dorm rooms as they self-isolated. The steak in “vegan” meals, watermelon chicken salads and chips with salad dressing went viral as students found humor amid quarantining.
At its core, COVID-19 signifies sickness and hardship. But TikTok is one example of how younger people, specifically Generation Z, are finding ways to laugh during the extreme stress and uncertainty of the pandemic.
“If I didn’t laugh at it, I’d just be mad all the time, so it makes it a little bit easier,” Vigario said.
Comedy as a coping mechanism is nothing new. According to an essay published in Zócalo Public Square, humor during the age of the 1918 Spanish flu mirrored some of what we see today. In the poem, “The Last Wheeze,” published in The Washington Herald in 1918, the author Edmund Vance Cooke wrote about pandemic paranoia.
“Have you stumped one of your toes? Have you just a bleeding nose? Or no matter what your woes – Spanish Flu!” Cooke penciled at the end of his work.
Although humor throughout these tragedies may feel crude and distasteful, it can also have biological benefits.
According to Inverse, laughter is beneficial because it activates neural reward systems that release dopamine, serotonin and endorphins, which induce various positive feelings.
Chanel Young, a fourth-year computer science student, moderates the UCLA Memes for Sick AF Tweens Facebook group. In early spring, as COVID-19 began spreading in the United States and students were adjusting to online learning, Young remembers noticing a sharp increase in page activity.
In May, when Stan’s Donuts went out of business because of the coronavirus, Young posted a meme comparing 2019 to 2020 at UCLA. 2019 included crushing tuition, sports, seeing friends and the infamous Westwood dessert shop. One year later, all of the positives have disappeared, and all that’s left is the lone crushing tuition.
Throughout the page’s comments, Young notices the frequent “truuueeee,” left behind by students. To Young, this indicates “I also relate to this,” she said. Although social media isn’t a substitute for in-person connection, she feels that online humor still contributes to a sense of community by expressing feelings in shared, specific comedic styles.
Similarly, Aanchal Singla, a fourth-year neuroscience student, uploaded photos to the meme page of UCLA’s campus from the video game Grand Theft Auto V. The caption read, “Low-key the only reason I play GTA is to go stand and stare at Powell sometimes and pretend like the past 4 months never happened.”
Her post garnered over 2,300 likes and 254 comments. Singla remembers the majority of the commenters tagging friends or feeling nostalgic about being on campus.
“In COVID, you’re alone in your room – you don’t have other people around you to be like ‘Wow, we’re all stuck being sad together,’” Young said. “With the memes, what makes me happy is when I see comments, 90% of them are people tagging their friends. Someone out there thought, ‘Wow, this meme, I relate to it. I think my friend will also relate to it.’”
Caroline Streeter, a UCLA associate professor of English and African American studies, has noticed a shift in the kinds of humor used today compared to a few decades ago.
“Younger people are more cautious and less apt to deploy the kind of humor that I'm more used to that may be edgier,” Streeter said.
In the 1980s, she explained that the so-called “edgy” realms of comedy would often employ homophobic and racist slurs, as well as other offensive language. With younger generations such as her students, Streeter sees humor as much less disrespectful. Today, Streeter sees more inclusivity in her classroom, which includes more respect for nonbinary gender identities, as well as greater awareness of racism and other social justice issues.
Still, Singla believes that sometimes coronavirus comedy can be a slippery slope. On other Facebook forums, such as UCLA Secrets, she noticed that many people felt uncomfortable joking about the pandemic, especially if they had lost family members. But, ultimately, she believes that when it comes to the pandemic, humor isn’t being used in a malicious way, and it helps people disengage from a seemingly helpless reality.
“Maybe (coping with humor) is not the most logical or reasonable or rational thing to do, but at the end of the day, if it’s helping us cope then ... the morality of it can be questioned, but the effectiveness of it cannot be questioned,” Singla said.