COVID-19 pandemic in popular culture

[5] "It was inevitable that films would be made about this significant chapter in global history, in part because a small group of people enduring an extended stay in their own homes is about the only scenario it's safe and logistically possible to actually shoot right now.

It features the fictional Kazakh journalist Borat Sagdiyev (Sacha Baron Cohen) traveling around the United States and interacting with Americans during the pandemic.

[9] Writing for The New York Times about the then-upcoming BBC sitcom Pandemonium on 16 December 2020, David Segal asked, "Are we ready to laugh about Covid-19?

Or rather, is there anything amusing, or recognizable in a humorous way, about life during a plague, with all of its indignities and setbacks, not to mention its rituals (clapping for health care workers) and rules (face masks, please).

The opening episode number 47, "The New Abnormal" featured a storyline centered around the COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts on both the recurring characters and everyday individuals.

[21] The initial response was negative, with critics arguing that it was "cashing in on human suffering"[22] and "throwing nightmare fuel on the fire of conspiracy theorists.

While experiencing writer's block, he hesitantly calls his ex-girlfriend Jessie, who fled the effects of the pandemic in New York City and is under lockdown in Kerala.

Directed by Amrit Raj Gupta, the series was released on Dice Media YouTube channel, with its first episode uploaded on 15 March 2021.

Pablo Larrain coordinated a short film anthology entitled Homemade, created during—and featuring stories about—the COVID-19 lockdown period.

The music video for the song "Phenom" by Thao & the Get Down Stay Down was recorded entirely via the "rigid grid format of the teleconferencing app Zoom," while the band members were in home isolation.

[37] The music video for "Lose Somebody" by Kygo and One Republic used large green screen footage and wild images while working remote from each other due to COVID-19 restrictions.

[38] The video for "Freedom", also by Kygo and featuring Zak Abel, was shot separately from their homes and focused on their lives while under stay-at-home orders.

More personal and "sentimental" in nature, it presented the band living together in isolation in their dorm during the COVID-19 pandemic—in one scene RM "wistfully wipes a couple of fingers' worth of dust off his bicycle seat" as he can no longer participate in that outdoor activity[19]—having a pajama party, watching movies, and playing video games, intercut with a clip of V driving his band mates around South Korea and eventually past Seoul Olympic Stadium—he "peers out the window" and "longingly stares" at the venue as they pass it—where the band was slated to kickoff their Map of the Soul Tour several months prior, before it was ultimately cancelled due to the pandemic.

At a press conference held the day of Be's release, Jungkook said that his intent with the music video was to express the "sadness and the longing" the band felt due to the tour's cancellation "and because we couldn't see ARMY much".

[43] As people turned to music to relieve emotions evoked by the pandemic, Spotify listenership showed that classical, ambient, and children's genres grew due to COVID-19 while it remained relatively the same for pop, country, and dance.

Author Sloane Crosley[59] Madrid's Teatro Real debuted a modified version of Verdi's La Traviata where COVID-19 physical distancing restrictions were incorporated into the production.

[71] Tamas Detrich, director of the Stuttgart Ballet, commissioned eight contemporary dance works "created within and for these straitened circumstances", three of which were premiered at the company's first post-shutdown event Response 1.

By doing so, they have altered their message to the public by including practices of social distancing, staying at home, cleanliness, and the usage of masks in their advertisements.

For example, NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, has said to continue its Santa Claus tracking on 24 December 2020, despite the pandemic.

[93] A chart from Bazaarvoice.com shows a Year-over-Year ("YoY") increase in monthly page views and order counts from 1 January – 30 June 2020, averaged from 6,200 different e-commerce (ECOM) websites.

When former President Donald Trump issued COVID-19 a National Emergency in mid-March, both page views and order counts had a YoY increase to 96% and 88%, respectively.

[95] The top trending ECOM sites amid the pandemic from highest YoY growth to least were Toys and Games, Business and Industrial, Sporting Goods, Hardware, Home & Garden, Entertainment, Animal & Pet Supplies, Electronics, and Food/Beverages/Tobacco.

Credit card network websites such as Visa.com, PayPal.com, and Mastercard.com have seen page view and payment volume growth pressured by temporary business closures, elevated unemployment, and a cutback on international travel.

As a result of the new norm to online chat and video streaming methods, websites such as Zoom have seen massive growth in page visits and user volume.

[97] Many memes[98] (notably in the form of art-recreations,[99] songs,[51] and videos[100]) were created by, and shared among, the large numbers of amateur content creators from in their homes during the isolation period itself.

During the course of the pandemic, the social media app TikTok grew the most,[101] lending to a number of new trends in digital pop culture including video games like Animal Crossing, Among Us and Genshin Impact, banana bread baking, Tiger King memes, and quarantines.

[102] The increasing popularity of TikTok led to the development of similar-looking features on other social media platforms, such as Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts.

[101] In the early stage of the pandemic, a survey conducted by Gao J. Zheng shows a high prevalence of mental health problems, which is positively associated with frequent exposure to social media.

[103] When the stay-at-home order was enforced, young people showed a higher level of frustration than other age groups because many mistakenly thought they were not part of the at-risk population.

As the unfortunate pan of events that emerged from the crisis, sports fans were distraught as some of their favorite teams were forced to withdraw from specific tournaments or even the season altogether.