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About

Don't Touch Your Face is a recommendation made by the Center for Disease Control in February 2020 due to the Coronavirus Outbreak. The recommendation inspired commentary online surrounding the difficulty of refraining from touching your face.

Origin

On February 15th, 2020, the Center for Disease Control^[1] listed "Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth" in their list of preventative measures associated with the Coronavirus. On February 28th, Twitter users began commenting on trying to avoid touching their face. Twitter user @McJesse posted a TikTok video of someone reading an article and touching their face with the caption, "Reading a coronavirus article telling me not to touch my face" (shown below). The tweet garnered over 3,900 likes and 500 retweets in a week.

Spread

March 3rd, 2020, Twitter user @Shubbabang^[5] posted a drawing of someone holding their face while looking at a computer screen with the caption "the CDC, social media, me: wash your hands. dont touch your face. how i just caught myself propping my head up:" (shown below). The post received over 1,100 likes in three days.

On March 4th, Twitter user @HolyCow_Inc shared a video of a spokesperson of the Center for Disease Control telling people to stop touching their face and then licks her finger to turn a page (shown below). The video accumulated over 1,500 likes in two days. The video was reposted by Redditor Peterrtt two days later on r/videos^[6] and acquired over 2,600 points (93% upvoted) in a day.

On March 5th, @gabebergado^[2] posted two images of two models touching their face with the caption, "public health officials: don't touch your face me:" (shown below). The tweet gained over 600 likes in a day. Both Mashable^[3] and StayHipp^[4] published articles on memes relating to the preventative measure.

Various Examples

I am pretty sure thinking about not touching my face is making me touch my face 10x more than usual. Under the best of circumstances, I do this at least half a dozen times a day: pic.twitter.com/YIXkY4it8M

— Eric J. Perkins (@AllostEricSite) February 28, 2020

CDC: don’t touch your face

Me:
pic.twitter.com/rWByMxsDJ8

— Brooke Rogers 🌻 (@bkerogers) February 28, 2020

When the CDC tells me not to touch my face pic.twitter.com/zGh6nqMviQ

— Orli Matlow (@HireMeImFunny) February 28, 2020

Search Interest

External References