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Ever Given: The ship that launched a thousand memes

By
Bernhard Warner
Bernhard Warner
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By
Bernhard Warner
Bernhard Warner
Down Arrow Button Icon
March 25, 2021, 8:33 AM ET

Longer than the Eiffel Tower, the Ever Given is one of the biggest container ships in operation. For much of its three-year existence, it’s been transporting the world’s goods from port to port, a floating colossus that makes global trade chug along.

When the vessel got stuck in Egypt’s Suez Canal on Tuesday it became famous the world over for another reason—its plight inspired a torrent of Internet memes that have been flooding our social media feeds in recent days.

That makes sense. The Ever Given has become a giant metaphor for a world that’s stuck—stuck in a lockdown, stuck awaiting a vaccine appointment, stuck wondering when our kids will go back to school or whether we should even bother to book that summer vacation.

Here are a few of our favorite Ever Given memes:

The market implications

The stock market vs the economy pic.twitter.com/EqD2MFGYsN

— Dr. Parik Patel, BA, CFA, ACCA Esq. (@ParikPatelCFA) March 24, 2021

If it seems your stock portfolio is stuck in neutral these days, you’re not imagining things. The Nasdaq 100, a collection of Big Tech big-caps, has barely budged in 2021. It’s down 0.7% year to date. Big Tech, too, is stuck in the metaphorical mud.

So Suez you!

Bitcoin doesn't get stuck in a canal

— John W. Rich (Wealthy) (@Cokedupoptions) March 24, 2021

***

The best memes also serve as tiny little admissions to the world that, Yeah, I’ve been there. The Ever Given has given the Internet permission to share just that.

The unbearable heaviness of being

Today’s Comic: We are all, in our own little way, that ship. pic.twitter.com/GVDjLxzErX

— Chaz Hutton (@chazhutton) March 24, 2021

Inside a writer’s tortured mind

pic.twitter.com/uOKZyCN4I6

— Dr. Ian Garner (@irgarner) March 24, 2021

Time to get some air. Again

🙃 pic.twitter.com/oQ5kVOSftc

— D S (@d333b4) March 24, 2021

Aren’t we all

https://twitter.com/sarayasin/status/1374726910266245123

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By Bernhard Warner
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