The Worldwide IT Outage Isn't Funny, but the Memes Sure Are

This morning, I reported a worldwide IT outage affecting everything from airlines to hospitals to 911 systems to workplaces. A bad Crowdstrike update sent to millions of users around the world was to blame, and it may take months before everything goes back to normal. Friends and family members who work in IT are having an absolutely terrible day, as is the guy who sent out the update, I'm sure.

Nevertheless, the internet did what the internet does: It made light to the situation and added some needed levity for those affected by the outage. Here are some of my favorites.

First up is a screenshot of (alleged) IT people gaming X's AI. Grok had a rough day too.

There were a few of these as well:

First day at Crowdstrike, pushed a little update and taking the afternoon off ✌️ pic.twitter.com/bOs4qAKwu0
— Vincent Flibustier 👽 (@vinceflibustier) July 19, 2024

This one comes from the TOLDYASO! file:

pic.twitter.com/mQl9McvdhO
— DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) July 19, 2024

And then there were the poor IT guys whose days were ruined by the outage.

👀 pic.twitter.com/mWIYQBm9oU
— Judianna (@Judianna) July 19, 2024

Those not affected by the outage were quick to dunk:

If your IT guy dresses like this you don’t have to worry about crowdstrike pic.twitter.com/J9T42dcLkO
— John W. Rich (Wealthy) (@Cokedupoptions) July 19, 2024

pic.twitter.com/oh6IgluCTV
— nft_yogesh.sol (🦍,🦍) (@nft_yogesh) July 19, 2024

Mac users watching the #Crowdstrike debacle: pic.twitter.com/Pn3XVZsnfx
— ᴺᴼᵀ Jony Ive (@JonyIveParody) July 19, 2024

I'm pretty sure my husband, a lifelong PC man, became a Mac guy today.

Linux users 😎💪💪#Microsoft #Windows #crowdstrike #Infosys pic.twitter.com/l1Elt8DO1z
— Secular Chad (@SachabhartiyaRW) July 19, 2024

And, of course, there was no shortage of Y2K memes:

This is what they told us Y2K was going to be like. #crowdstrike pic.twitter.com/1pNaXzOLle
— Grifter (@Grifter801) July 19, 2024

So here's the Y2K bug, 24.5 years later pic.twitter.com/yTBmrVXxSh
— flavio (@flaviocopes) July 19, 2024

Then there were the tweets coming at Crowdstrike and Microsoft:

Microsoft right now. pic.twitter.com/5AA5YuseR5
— Matthew Highton (@MattHighton) July 19, 2024

#CrowdStrike #CrowdStroke #BOSD #bluescreen #Microsoft #windows #windows11 outage #404 #falcon #meme #coin #solana #it #sys #infosys #memecoin1000x #memecoin #MemeCoinSeason2024 pic.twitter.com/fsEMO6ebsR
— CrowdstrokeMe (@Crowdstroke24) July 19, 2024