About

Marked Safe From X is an exploitable image and phrasal template that parodies the Facebook Crisis Response status updates that are usually deployed after a disaster or dangerous event. The Safety Check feature's first major deployment was on April 25th, 2015, in the aftermath of the Nepal earthquake. The "marked safe from X today" status featuring the blue flag graphic began to be parodied in 2017, with early memes marking themselves as "safe" from various people or places.

Origin

On October 15th, 2014, Facebook introduced its Facebook Safety Check feature, which allowed a user to mark themselves as safe in the event of a major disaster. The feature was first deployed on a large scale in the aftermath of the April 2015 Nepal earthquake (seen below).^[1]

In late 2017, an edited version of the Facebook Safety Check feature including the blue flag began to make the rounds on Facebook and Instagram, with a page named Liberty with Paula Marie posting the first known version of the image to Facebook on October 14th, 2017.^[2] The earliest post of a memetic use of the Facebook safety feature reading "marked safe from Harvey Weinstein" was posted by Perez Hilton to his Instagram^[3] on November 2nd, 2017, where it gathered over 1,900 likes in over five years (seen below).

Spread

In January 2019, the first viral iterations of the meme began making the rounds. On January 8th, 2019, the Facebook^[4] page TheTruth posted a version of the meme that read, "Marked safe from the nonexistent southern border crisis today," gathering over 1,500 likes in over three years. The meme was then reposted by the Facebook^[5] page God, gathering over 32,000 likes in over three years (seen below, left). On January 13th, 2019, the Facebook^[6] page NFL Memes posted another version of the format, gathering over 50,000 likes in roughly three years (seen below, right).

The meme continued to proliferate in 2019 and 2020, with the Instagram^[7] page moistgiraffes posting a version of the meme on December 19th, 2019, gathering over 10,000 likes in three years (seen below, left).

On February 8th, 2020, the Instagram^[8] page inkedmagazine posted another variant using the graphic as an exploitable template, gathering over 19,000 likes in a similar timeframe (seen below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References