About

Cuck Zone refers to a bar in a satirical illustration of a college campus published in Current Affairs Magazine in 2018. The illustration was intended to be a satirical look at what right-wing conservatives think liberals want college campuses to look like. The illustration resurfaced on Twitter in May 2020 and caused "cuck zone" to trend.

Origin

In November 2018, Current Affairs Magazine published a satirical illustration of a campus scene by artist Chelsea Saunders^[1] in their 16th issue (shown below). The original title for the piece, as it appeared on the artwork used in the meme, is "The Campus: As It Exists In The Mind of a U.S. Conservative."

Spread

The meme spread online without the subtitle, and by doing so, some believed the image to be an earnest critique. On May 11th 2020, Twitter user @quasimatt^[3] shared the illustration and captioned it "tag yourself i’m teaching a class in the basement of the college of grievance studies" (show below, left). The tweet gained over 76,400 likes and 7,500 retweets in a day. That day, the artist and Twitter user @che_saunders^[4] responded saying, "Glad this piece I drew for @curaffairs is getting some love. To clarify: yes, this is satire, and was originally titled "The Campus Seen Through The Eyes of US Conservatives." ✊🏽" (shown below, right). The tweet accumulated over 15,900 likes and 3,300 retweets in a day.

On May 11th, Twitter users overwhelming took favor over the "cuck zone" portion of the illustration. Twitter user @theserfstv^[5] posted an image of the fictional bar with the caption, "If anyone wants to hang we'll be in the cuck zone" (shown below, left). The tweet received over 1,700 likes and 150 retweets in a day. Twitter user @socialistdogmom^[6] shared a screenshot of cuck zone trending with the caption, "please, unless your wife's boyfriend has been quarantining with you, refrain from entering the cuck zone until your state has seen at least 14 consecutive days of declining COVID-19 cases" (shown below, right). The tweet gained 1,100 likes and 170 retweets in a day. StayHipp^[2] published an article on the illustration.

Some commented on the usage of the image as a sincere work of criticism. Twitter^[8] @extremestan tweeted, "Poe's Law in action. Somebody took this parody image, removed 'as it exists in the mind of a U.S. conservative,' and now it's trending under 'Cuck Zone' as a Ben Garrison-like work of unhinged culture war alarmism about the decline of our universities" (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References