About

Coming Out Of Quarantine, also known as Coming Out Of Quarantine Be Like, refers to a series of reaction images that revolve around the eventual reemergence of society as people leave self-isolation and quarantine following the conclusion of the coronavirus pandemic. Typically, these memes refer to one’s deteriorating health, finances, appearance, social skills or overexcited reaction to seeing things they missed while trapped inside. The theme was primarily seen on Twitter at first but spread to other social media platforms throughout March 2020.

Origin

The first example to use the theme is unknown, but users online began posting reactions and making memes about “coming out of quarantine” as early as March 2020, during the COVID-19 outbreak. One early example (seen below) was posted on March 12th, 2020, by Twitter^[1] user harrismayer using an image from Netflix’s Love is Blind with the caption “A month from now, coming out of quarantine.”

A month from now, coming out of quarantine pic.twitter.com/C4Ft2JMJxN

— Harris Mayersohn (@harrismayer) March 12, 2020

Spread

The theme spread further as additional users from Twitter joined in on the trend with their own reactions. On March 17th, 2020, following the news that Pornhub would give Italians free Premium subscriptions to encourage them to stay in isolation, Twitter^[2] user Shamedless96 posted an image of Quagmire from Family Guy after discovering internet pornography. The tweet (shown below) received 111 likes, 27 retweets and two replies.

Coming out of the quarantine in Italy be like: #COVID2019 pic.twitter.com/V0bDlTil2u

— King hustler (@Shamedless96) March 17, 2020

The trend also made its way over to Reddit in mid-March, seen in an example from Redditor^[3] Adventure84 to the r/starterpacks sub on March 18th, 2020. The post (seen below) was upvoted over 21,000 times and commented on 259 times.

On March 19th, 2020, Redditor^[4] Damaged Bean Brain uploaded a meme to the r/BikiniBottomTwitter sub featuring a series of images from SpongeBob depicting people leaving quarantine after not seeing a barber for months. The post (shown below) received over 51,000 upvotes, 522 comments and a few Reddit awards.

Twitter^[5] user matty_95 uploaded a reaction video on March 28th, 2020, under the caption, “Everyone in a few month’s time coming out of quarantine.” This tweet (seen below) was liked over 35,000 times and retweeted another 10,000 times.

Everyone in a few months time coming out of quarantine pic.twitter.com/cqxuPo68LI

— Matty (@matty_95) March 28, 2020

On March 28th, 2020, Twitter^[6] user JessimaePeluso used a scene from the documentary Tiger King that shows a clip of Joe Exotic speaking to depict how they anticipate people to emerge from quarantine. The tweet (shown below) received nearly 500 likes and 130 retweets.

This is going to be all of us coming out of this #Quarantine … #TigerKingNetflix #BrokeAsShit pic.twitter.com/dShIUXQ0RK

— Jessimae (@JessimaePeluso) March 28, 2020

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References