Coffin carriers applaud the toilets and warn: "Stay home or dance with us"

Ghanaian casket carriers, protagonists of the meme in which they appear dancing with a coffin, have recorded a video applauding the toilets. Benjamin Aidoo, the porter who appears in some of these videos and photos with a cane, has shared it on Twitter and Instagram: without being the only one, he has become one of the most recognizable media porters in the meme. In his message of thanks, Aidoo not only mentions the work of the toilets, but he sends a message to all his followers to encourage them to respect the confinement: "Remember: stay home or dance with us."

From NANA OTAFRIJA to all the doctors in the world 🌍
Thank you 👏🏻
Mention 👇🏻 all the doctors out there with your country flag. #COVID ー 19 #CoffinMeme #benjaminaidoo #nanaotafrija #CoffinDance #Doctors pic.twitter.com/OVrv5Ib8pz

“From Nana Otafrija - the funeral company where she works - to all the doctors and health workers in the world, thank you. Label all the doctors who are with you with the flag of your country.

The tweet has been shared more than 15,000 times in one day, with the text: “From Nana Otafrija - the funeral company where she works - to all the doctors and health workers in the world, thank you. Label all the doctors who are with you with the flag of your country. "The video adds 1.3 million reproductions, figures consistent with the popularity of the meme, which has been in use since March. In the videos of this meme, first images of someone about to make a mistake (a fall, for example) are seen, but before it happens, the video is cut and the porters appear dancing with the coffin on their shoulders and with the music of Astronomia, by the electronic music artist Tony Igy, in the background.

@ tora_tora81

####

The video is released at a time when cases of the disease on the continent are growing, even though the pandemic had been contained (comparatively). In Africa there are about 50,000 confirmed cases, according to data collected by the African Center for Disease Control, which have left almost 2,000 deaths. Ghana, with some 24 million inhabitants, has reported more than 2,700 cases of covid-19 and less than 20 deaths (as of Wednesday, May 6). It is the sixth most affected country on the continent.

In Verne we spoke with Emmanuel Agyeman, one of the workers of a funeral company in Accra, the capital of Ghana, who told us that these acts are common in funerals held in the country: "These parties are held when the person who dies has had a long life, when he dies aged 60 or over (life expectancy in Ghana is slightly below 63). " And he added: "When a young person dies it is somewhat painful, but if someone older does it, all this is prepared to celebrate life."

Aidoo, who has shared this applause on networks, appeared in the Associated Press and BBC documentaries of 2017, where the images used in the meme come from. He has been working in the sector since 2007 and was the one who decided to incorporate dances, music and colorful costumes: “At the beginning, the porters wore black at funerals. When I started, I decided to add some variants, buy my own costumes, my own shoes ... Also, we always try to improve the choreography and try new ways of dancing, ”he said in the Associated Press report.

Memes and black humor

Aidoo had already shared messages relating the meme that stars in the pandemic, as in a tweet in which he recommended social distancing. In this message I already used, in the form of a label, the phrase "stay at home or dance with us".

Remember !!! 🕺🏾🕺🏾🎩 pic.twitter.com/7pbOJL1LAq

As we already mentioned in an article on the language of memes and coronaviruses, these messages on social networks help to create links and spread messages between communities. Often they do so based on humor, which works largely from shared codes, such as the mechanics of a given meme.

The humor about the pandemic, even the black humor, also helps to deal with uncertainty. As neuroscientist Scott Weems writes in Ja, the science of when we laugh and why, these jokes provoke "complex emotional reactions" that may even be contradictory. It helps us to see these fears and these uncertainties with distance, with the aim not to trivialize or corner them, but to be able to deal with them or simply understand them better.

* You can also follow us on Instagram and Flipboard. Don't miss the best of Verne!