April, No!

About

"April, No!" is a memorable quote uttered by the character April Ludgate on the American situational comedy Parks and Recreation. Online, a screenshot from the scene has been used in an image macro series about April 2020.

Origin

On October 17th, 2013, the episode "Gin It Up!" of Parks and Recreation aired in the United States. In the episode, the character Leslie Knope (portrayed by Amy Poehler) suggests her staff place "question mark stickers" on posters (clip below).^[1] One member, April Ludgate (portrayed by Aubrey Plaza), asks if she can have the stickers to "put them on stop signs." As she runs out the door with the stickers, Leslie yells, "April, no!"

On October 21st, 2014, Imgur ^[2] user CarryOnMyWaywardPun posted a series of images from the scene. The post received more than 515,000 views and 9,600 points in less than six years (shown below).

Spread

April 2020 Predictions

In March 2020, the image became associated with the April 2020 Predictions memes, which joke about disasters that would add to the ongoing crisis surrounding the coronavirus outbreak. On March 29th, 2020, Redditor ^[3] anoncoolguy69 shared the screenshot of April running as the reaction to a YouTube video "What If the Yellowstone Volcano Erupted Tomorrow?" The post received more than 52,000 points (96% upvoted) and 220 comments in less than 24 hours (shown below, left).

That day, others on Reddit shared variations. For example, Redditor^[4] dankbob_memepants_ shared a version reacting to the video "What If Hitler Came Back To Life?" The post received more than 23,000 points (95% upvoted) and 165 comments in less than 24 hours (shown below, center). Redditor^[5] ewan57 shared one reacting to the video "What if We Have a Nuclear War?" The post received more than 68,000 points (94% upvoted) and 250 comments in less than 24 hours (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References