Between Massive Fires, Earthquakes, And Hurricanes, Twitter Is Freaking Out
This week is a cluster-bomb of natural disasters, and people on social media are freaking out. The Twitter reactions to the fires, earthquakes, and hurricanes range from #Apocalypse2017 jokes to hilarious memes to legitimate concern. And to be fair, they've all got a point.
The insane week (and month) of weather the world is seeing is seemingly beyond compare -- at least, in a historical sense. Though we've seen fewer casualties for natural disasters compared to a hundred years ago, the frequency of them has skyrocketed, a report in The Economist shows. (When people say "off the charts," this is what that literally means.) Despite the unprecedented meteorological happenings, social media users had no trouble coming up with fantastical parallels and references. And, honestly, we're not opposed to some humor during this stressful week.
Trio Of Hurricanes
While residents of Texas and Louisiana are beginning what looks to be a very long recovery process after Hurricane Harvey, which brought massive flooding and historic rainfall to the region. Hurricane Irma has already decimated islands in the Caribbean. It's still going strong as a Category 5 hurricane, though, and threatens a worst-case scenario for Florida. Meanwhile, two more tropical storms are winding their way through the Caribbean.
The three separate hurricanes are all funneling through the Atlantic at the same time in what, to be fair, looks like something out of a movie. (Thanks, NBC, for the terrifying visuals.) The last time three hurricanes were all brewing at the same time in this ocean was in 2010, The Independent reports.
With what's currently brewing, plus what forecasters expect, we're already on track to surpass what's normal for a hurricane season, which runs from mid-August to mid-October, according to The Independent. Thanks to this most recent sprinkling of storms, four of this season's six named hurricanes will have hit the U.S. within a couple weeks.
The triple-threat of Irma, Jose and Katia spurred a lot of comparisons on Twitter to the movie The Day After Tomorrow, complete with calls for Jake Gyllenhaal to save us.
Other users rightly pointed out the (terrifying) similarity between the movie 2012 and what's currently going on.
Wildfires Aplenty.
A wildfire in Los Angeles, California that began Sept. 1 was reportedly one of the worst in the city's history. Meanwhile, on the Oregon-Washington, the Eagle Creek wildfire is still just 5 percent contained, and it's already consumed 33,000 acres. Idaho, Utah, and Montana are also under siege thanks to drought conditions that have allowed late-summer flares to grow quickly. And that's not even all of them.
As VICE points out below, it would be an article on its own just to list all the fires actively burning across the country.
You have to give credit to the guy who came up with this sardonic parody of the Stealers Wheel classic.
Earthquakes In Mexico
Late Thursday night, an 8.1 magnitude earthquake rocked Mexico, hitting off the coast of the states of Chiapas and Oaxaca. The tremor caused numerous aftershocks and at least 32 deaths and set off a tsunami warning across major regions of the Pacific.
Rapper Immortal Technique (who incidentally is hosting a Hurricane Harvey benefit concert with a host of other artists) wasn't amused.
Each one of these disasters is (or is potentially capable of) causing massive damage. When you add it all up, things are looking, well, terrible. She gets it:
In sum, Twitter did what it does best: Make jokes to blunt the force of unbelievable events.
Maybe there was something to all those theories about the world ending?
No? Well, at least we can find comfort in the high-tension moments right? (Cue montage of hot celebs wearing torn tank tops and combat boots.)
The end is near, but it's chill.
For those of us still paying off student loans, this one hits close to home.
One silver lining to the #apocalypse disasters is realizing how many other people automatically associate real life with LOTR.
We just knew someone would reference this. (How could you not?)
On the bright side, now when people try to talk about last November as being catastrophic, you've got a Trump card (pun most certainly intended).
And because the "This is fine" gif we all love so much is basically just things going up in flames, which is literally what's happening across the country, we needed this:
Lest we forget the other notable occurrences of the last few weeks: A once-in-a-lifetime solar eclipse and multiple nuclear missile one-uppings in North Korea. All we need is a good flesh-eating-bacteria outbreak or a zombie scare to complete the apocalyptic movie narrative.
