Breaking News

Origin

The BREAKING NEWS meme template started with generic news footage showing a broadcast complete with a moving text crawl displaying urgent or dramatic announcements. When the pandemic hit in early 2020, internet users discovered they could take this format and repurpose it for jokes and satire across all kinds of subjects, especially poking fun at how ridiculous the constant stream of news had become. What made it work so well was the jarring mismatch between the formal, serious presentation of a news report and the absurd or silly scenarios people inserted into it. The template also proved incredibly versatile—it worked equally well for making political points or just sharing funny observations—which meant people could adapt it for almost any purpose and spread it easily on platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Over time, creators started using the format specifically to call out how misinformation spreads online and to ridicule the sensational, exaggerated style of much contemporary media coverage.