The Brief: A meme has been circulating the internet predicting that Queen Elizabeth II will die on January 5, 2019.

Bluesquiggle
DEEP DIVE

Update: January 5th has come and gone and the Queen lives on – inspiring memes about the inaccuracy of previous predictions and the silliness of it all. 

Mission failed from r/dankmemes


This prediction is not based on fact. Rather it is a play on the possibility that the queen actually will die on that date, thus confirming a farcical conspiracy theory based on an arbitrary date. There has been no notable recent news about the queen’s health, but she is 92-years-old. Memes predicting that the Queen will die first began on the subreddit Me_Irl after a user named beefy_cabbage posted a meme predicting her death.

Since then, memes about the Queen dying on the 5th of January have proliferated on Reddit and online – potentially feeding more serious conspiracy theories. Although it seems to be a joke about as random as lemon memesBig Chungus, or Ugandan Knuckles, the content of this meme could feed into real anxieties around the prediction of the death of a powerful public figure. These memes seem to been made in jest, but jokes predicting someone’s death can be offputting or distasteful. Furthermore, popular versions of the meme countdown the days until the Queen’s supposed date of death, adding a dark tone to them.

me_irl from r/me_irl

me irl from r/me_irl

me irl from r/me_irl

me_irl from r/me_irl

God Save The Queen from r/dankmemes

Proudly stolen from r/dankmemes

me_irl from r/me_irl

The Queen must see the memes from r/dankmemes

2 more days from r/dankmemes

me👑irl from r/me_irl