No One Understands the Hectic Things You Do With Your Life Like the ‘Whatever You Need to Do to Cope’ Meme

Life is hard. Twitter understands.

The latest self-care meme to sweep the social media site is all about prioritizing yourself and doing what you need to do to get by. “Cancelling plans is OK,” it usually starts out. That’s decent advice! But then things usually take a turn — and readers will be surprised by the actions that are deemed acceptable in order to cope.

That’s because users have been converting the plots of different movies — from Mamma Mia! to last year’s indie thriller Midsommar to critical favorite Parasite to classic Shrek — into the formula of the meme. In the process, they’ve been ironically justifying everything from singing Abba songs to casual murder in the name of coping. “Do what you need to do to cope,” the tweets inevitable end, wryly.

Spoiler alert: most of this advice should not be taken seriously. But since when has Twitter ever actually been positive for our collective mental health? In any case, welcome to 2020, where the memes are already flowing freely. (Canceling plans is totally fine if you need to do it, though.)