About

Gulag refers to a Call of Duty: Warzone 1v1 map which pitches two players eliminated from the main action against each other for a chance to return to the battlefield. The feature became a popular subject of memes among the Call of Duty: Warzone player base, with map gaining more mainstream recognition starting in April 2020. In many examples, the joke exploits the premise of deceased people fighting each other for a chance to come back to life.

Origin

The multiplayer map Gulag Showers was first introduced in the 2009 video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.^[1] The 2v2 map is based on the location from the game's single-player campaign.

On March 10th, 2020, battle royale video game Call of Duty: Warzone was released. Unlike other battle royale games, upon dying in Warzone players are not immediately eliminated but are instead given a chance to return back to action by winning a 1v1 match on a smaller map called Gulag, largely identical to the Gulag Showers from Modern Warfare 2.

Upon the start of the duel, both players are given identical weapons and have to either kill the opponent or capture the flag in the middle of the map. The winning player gets redeployed on the main map, while the loser gets eliminated. A player can only enter Gulag once during the match, with the second death in the main event meaning elimination.

Before their Gulag duel starts, dead players are placed on the rafters where they can watch others duel, throw rocks or punch each other.

Spread

Following the release of the game, Gulag gained immediate recognition in memes among the playerbase, with numerous memes appearing in /r/CODWarzone subreddit, on Twitter, Instagram and other platforms. For example, on March 26th, Redditor^[2] joesdirt reposted a Bane vs. Pink Guy meme that received over 8,400 upvotes in one month (shown below, left). On the same day, Instagram^[3] user yng_carti posted a meme that gained over 600 likes and 2,500 views in one month, with a March 29th repost to iFunny^[4] gaining over 53,000 smiles (reupload shown below, center). On April 3rd, 2020, Twitter^[5] user @Taron made a tweet that received over 25,100 retweets and 111,100 likes in one month (shown below, right).

The meme gained more mainstream recognition when on April 25th, 2020, Twitter^[6] user @Jack_Cohen17 made a joke referencing Kim Jong-un's Health Scare that received over 9,200 retweets and 24,400 (shown below).

#KimJongUn returning from the gulag #KIMJONGUNDEAD pic.twitter.com/lTz6PtuwzT

— Jack Cohen (@Jack_Cohen17) April 25, 2020

In the following days, more viral jokes based on the premise of Kim Jong-un dueling deceased people in the Gulag for a chance to come back to life were circulated online.

Various Examples

Lenin beats Kim Jong Un in the gulag pic.twitter.com/CoOBMMXcZx

— FABINO (@KinoFabino) April 21, 2020

Search Interest

External References