About

Lonely Theresa May is a series of image macros featuring British Prime Minister Theresa May sitting alone a conference table with her head down. Many online, have captioned the image, mocking her apparent loneliness and sadness.

Origin

On October 20th, 2017, Getty Images^[1] published a photograph of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Theresa May awaiting European Council President Donald Tusk at the European Leaders Summit. Taken by Geert Vanden Wijngaert, the photograph (shown below) features May sitting at a long conference table with her head down.

Spread

Shortly after the picture was used in news sources, such as the Associated Press and The Independent,^[2] people online began captioning the photograph. That day, Twitter ^[3] user @OwenJones84 captioned the photo "Hello darkness my old friend." The post (shown below, left) received more than 1,400 retweets and 4,800 likes in less than 12 hours.

Following this tweet, more users continued captioning the photograph, commenting on the sad appearance of May alone with her head down (examples below, center and right). Additionally, Twitter^[4] published a Moments page to archive some of the most popular tweets.

Several photoshops also appeared online. That day, Redditor ^[5] deceive_defy posted the picture in /r/photoshopbattles. In these examples (shown below), May is seen looking at items on her table.

By October 22nd 2017, news of the meme had spread to international and mainstream media. Junkee^[6] called it the saddest political meme while TIME magazine^[7] pointed out how the internet just couldn't resist making a meme from such a photo. SBS News in Australia^[8] and the South China Morning Post^[10] both reported just on the fact that it had gone 'viral', while the Irish Examiner^[9] called it the 'meme of the moment'.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References