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Delta variant meets 'my fall plans': The saddest, most relatable meme

That noise is the sound of America's high hopes crashing against reality, meme-style.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, generational studies. Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
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Gael Cooper

The coronavirus delta variant is serious stuff. It's more contagious, leads to more hospitalizations, and as of late July, accounts for about 80% of COVID cases in the US. Unsurprisingly, it's also found its way into memes and jokes, as many people's best-laid fall plans have suddenly taken a jolting turn. The variant isn't funny, but some of these memes are.

One Twitter user compared the delta variant's impact on fall plans to the disappointment many Jeopardy fans felt when Mike Richards, not LeVar Burton, was named main host of the quiz show after a year-long search.

Several riffed on Game of Thrones (remember Game of Thrones? Seems so long ago...)

One recalled Kevin from The Office when he sadly dropped his giant vat of homemade chili on the Dunder-Mifflin floor.

Classic monster movies like The Creature from the Black Lagoon and Godzilla were referenced.

And from there on out, well, the meme pretty much covered every element of pop culture where high hopes are suddenly dashed.

Some people were shocked anyone ever had high hopes in the first place. "I'm surprised y'all had fall plans," wrote one Twitter user.