2020 Will Be Better

2019Catchphrase / snowclonedead

Also known as: "2020 Is Gonna Be Our Year"

2020 Will Be Better is a 2019 catchphrase snowclone born from New Year's optimism that became darkly ironic when 2020 brought COVID-19, Australian bushfires, and Kobe Bryant's death.

"2020 Will Be Better" is a catchphrase that became one of early 2020's defining ironic memes, mocking the optimistic predictions people made at New Year's Eve before a brutal string of global crises proved them wrong. What started as genuine hopefulness on Twitter flipped into dark comedy within weeks, as U.S.-Iran tensions, the Australian bushfires, Kobe Bryant's death, and the COVID-19 pandemic all hit before spring1.

TL;DR

"2020 Will Be Better" is a catchphrase that became one of early 2020's defining ironic memes, mocking the optimistic predictions people made at New Year's Eve before a brutal string of global crises proved them wrong.

Overview

The meme works on a simple engine: contrast genuine New Year's optimism with the catastrophic reality of early 2020. Formats range from quote-tweeting your own naive January 1 post to pairing disaster footage with captions about how great 2020 was supposed to be1. The joke tapped into something universal. Millions of people had posted some version of "new year, fresh start" only to watch the world unravel in record time. Reaction images, SpongeBob clips, and the "Putting on Clown Makeup" template all got pulled into the format3.

Variations of the joke started circulating before 2020 even arrived. On November 18, 2019, the YouTube channel The Infographics Show published a video titled "Why 2020 Will Be a Horrible Year," which picked up over 1.4 million views in less than six months3. Ten days later, on November 28, Redditor obesewan_canoli posted a "Putting on Clown Makeup" meme where the final panel showed a clown beside the phrase "2020 Will Be Better," framing that optimism as self-delusion3.

These early posts set the template. The meme was primed and ready to explode the moment 2020 started delivering bad news.

Origin & Background

Platform
Reddit (early meme format), Twitter (viral spread)
Key People
obesewan_canoli; @queersocialism, @RandyEmillio
Date
2019 (late) – 2020 (viral peak)
Year
2019

Variations of the joke started circulating before 2020 even arrived. On November 18, 2019, the YouTube channel The Infographics Show published a video titled "Why 2020 Will Be a Horrible Year," which picked up over 1.4 million views in less than six months. Ten days later, on November 28, Redditor obesewan_canoli posted a "Putting on Clown Makeup" meme where the final panel showed a clown beside the phrase "2020 Will Be Better," framing that optimism as self-delusion.

These early posts set the template. The meme was primed and ready to explode the moment 2020 started delivering bad news.

How It Spread

The joke found its audience almost immediately after midnight. On January 3, 2020, a U.S. airstrike killed Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, spiking fears of a potential World War 3. Sarcastic "2020 will be better" posts flooded Twitter that day.

By late January, the meme had more material than anyone wanted. Australian bushfires dominated global headlines. COVID-19 started spreading well beyond China's borders. Then on January 26, Kobe Bryant died in a helicopter crash. When New Year's Eve rolled around weeks earlier, people had posted about how glad they were to start fresh. Now they were scrolling back through those tweets and cringing.

The format hit peak velocity on March 11, 2020. Twitter user @queersocialism retweeted their own January 1 post where they'd expressed hope for 2020, adding "i should've just sat there and ate my food." That retweet pulled in over 200,000 likes and 41,000 retweets within two days. The same day, @RandyEmillio posted a SpongeBob SquarePants clip of mass panic and chaos with the caption "Us: 2020 is gonna be our year *3 months later*," which reached 8.3 million views and 928,000 likes.

Mashable published its coverage that same March 11, describing how "nobody's quite able to keep up" and noting that people were "realizing just how optimistic they sounded in their New Year's Eve tweets".

How to Use This Meme

The format follows a straightforward pattern. Take an optimistic statement about 2020, then smash it against reality. Common approaches include:

- Screenshotting or quote-tweeting your own hopeful January 1 post, paired with a defeated reaction - Listing 2020's disasters alongside a crying reaction image (Anthony Anderson, SpongeBob chaos scenes) - Using the "Putting on Clown Makeup" template, with the final clown stage labeled "2020 will be better" - A simple before/after: the hopeful prediction on one side, a headline montage on the other

The humor works best when the gap between naive optimism and grim reality is as wide as possible. Specificity helps. "2020 will be my year" hits harder than vague positivity when followed by a list of exactly how wrong that prediction turned out to be.

Cultural Impact

The meme functioned as communal coping on a massive scale. Mashable captured the mood: "if there's anything that'll get us through this pandemic, it's realizing that we're all just fools". By letting people laugh at their own misplaced hope, the format processed collective shock in real time. Each new disaster in early 2020 added another punchline to a joke that kept writing itself.

The format also marked an early wave of what became an enormous flood of pandemic-era humor on social media. As COVID-19 reshaped daily life worldwide, internet memes became a primary outlet for processing grief, frustration, and absurdity. "2020 Will Be Better" was one of the first pandemic memes to go truly viral, setting the tone for months of quarantine humor that followed.

Fun Facts

The single biggest day for the meme was March 11, 2020, when @RandyEmillio's SpongeBob post alone hit 8.3 million views and the WHO declared COVID-19 a global pandemic.

The Infographics Show's "Why 2020 Will Be a Horrible Year" video from November 2019 turned out to be accidentally prophetic, gaining over 1.4 million views as events kept proving it right.

Mashable's article about the trend was published the exact same day COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, capturing the meme at its absolute peak.

Derivatives & Variations

SpongeBob chaos edits:

@RandyEmillio's March 11 post popularized pairing SpongeBob disaster scenes with "2020 is gonna be our year" captions, spawning many imitators[3].

Clown Makeup crossover:

obesewan_canoli's November 2019 Reddit post merged the catchphrase with the "Putting on Clown Makeup" progression format, one of the earliest meme adaptations of the phrase[3].

World War 3 memes:

The January 3 U.S.-Iran escalation spawned its own meme wave that heavily overlapped with "2020 will be better" jokes, sharing the same ironic structure[3].

Frequently Asked Questions

2020 Will Be Better

2019Catchphrase / snowclonedead

Also known as: "2020 Is Gonna Be Our Year"

2020 Will Be Better is a 2019 catchphrase snowclone born from New Year's optimism that became darkly ironic when 2020 brought COVID-19, Australian bushfires, and Kobe Bryant's death.

"2020 Will Be Better" is a catchphrase that became one of early 2020's defining ironic memes, mocking the optimistic predictions people made at New Year's Eve before a brutal string of global crises proved them wrong. What started as genuine hopefulness on Twitter flipped into dark comedy within weeks, as U.S.-Iran tensions, the Australian bushfires, Kobe Bryant's death, and the COVID-19 pandemic all hit before spring.

TL;DR

"2020 Will Be Better" is a catchphrase that became one of early 2020's defining ironic memes, mocking the optimistic predictions people made at New Year's Eve before a brutal string of global crises proved them wrong.

Overview

The meme works on a simple engine: contrast genuine New Year's optimism with the catastrophic reality of early 2020. Formats range from quote-tweeting your own naive January 1 post to pairing disaster footage with captions about how great 2020 was supposed to be. The joke tapped into something universal. Millions of people had posted some version of "new year, fresh start" only to watch the world unravel in record time. Reaction images, SpongeBob clips, and the "Putting on Clown Makeup" template all got pulled into the format.

Variations of the joke started circulating before 2020 even arrived. On November 18, 2019, the YouTube channel The Infographics Show published a video titled "Why 2020 Will Be a Horrible Year," which picked up over 1.4 million views in less than six months. Ten days later, on November 28, Redditor obesewan_canoli posted a "Putting on Clown Makeup" meme where the final panel showed a clown beside the phrase "2020 Will Be Better," framing that optimism as self-delusion.

These early posts set the template. The meme was primed and ready to explode the moment 2020 started delivering bad news.

Origin & Background

Platform
Reddit (early meme format), Twitter (viral spread)
Key People
obesewan_canoli; @queersocialism, @RandyEmillio
Date
2019 (late) – 2020 (viral peak)
Year
2019

Variations of the joke started circulating before 2020 even arrived. On November 18, 2019, the YouTube channel The Infographics Show published a video titled "Why 2020 Will Be a Horrible Year," which picked up over 1.4 million views in less than six months. Ten days later, on November 28, Redditor obesewan_canoli posted a "Putting on Clown Makeup" meme where the final panel showed a clown beside the phrase "2020 Will Be Better," framing that optimism as self-delusion.

These early posts set the template. The meme was primed and ready to explode the moment 2020 started delivering bad news.

How It Spread

The joke found its audience almost immediately after midnight. On January 3, 2020, a U.S. airstrike killed Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, spiking fears of a potential World War 3. Sarcastic "2020 will be better" posts flooded Twitter that day.

By late January, the meme had more material than anyone wanted. Australian bushfires dominated global headlines. COVID-19 started spreading well beyond China's borders. Then on January 26, Kobe Bryant died in a helicopter crash. When New Year's Eve rolled around weeks earlier, people had posted about how glad they were to start fresh. Now they were scrolling back through those tweets and cringing.

The format hit peak velocity on March 11, 2020. Twitter user @queersocialism retweeted their own January 1 post where they'd expressed hope for 2020, adding "i should've just sat there and ate my food." That retweet pulled in over 200,000 likes and 41,000 retweets within two days. The same day, @RandyEmillio posted a SpongeBob SquarePants clip of mass panic and chaos with the caption "Us: 2020 is gonna be our year *3 months later*," which reached 8.3 million views and 928,000 likes.

Mashable published its coverage that same March 11, describing how "nobody's quite able to keep up" and noting that people were "realizing just how optimistic they sounded in their New Year's Eve tweets".

How to Use This Meme

The format follows a straightforward pattern. Take an optimistic statement about 2020, then smash it against reality. Common approaches include:

- Screenshotting or quote-tweeting your own hopeful January 1 post, paired with a defeated reaction - Listing 2020's disasters alongside a crying reaction image (Anthony Anderson, SpongeBob chaos scenes) - Using the "Putting on Clown Makeup" template, with the final clown stage labeled "2020 will be better" - A simple before/after: the hopeful prediction on one side, a headline montage on the other

The humor works best when the gap between naive optimism and grim reality is as wide as possible. Specificity helps. "2020 will be my year" hits harder than vague positivity when followed by a list of exactly how wrong that prediction turned out to be.

Cultural Impact

The meme functioned as communal coping on a massive scale. Mashable captured the mood: "if there's anything that'll get us through this pandemic, it's realizing that we're all just fools". By letting people laugh at their own misplaced hope, the format processed collective shock in real time. Each new disaster in early 2020 added another punchline to a joke that kept writing itself.

The format also marked an early wave of what became an enormous flood of pandemic-era humor on social media. As COVID-19 reshaped daily life worldwide, internet memes became a primary outlet for processing grief, frustration, and absurdity. "2020 Will Be Better" was one of the first pandemic memes to go truly viral, setting the tone for months of quarantine humor that followed.

Fun Facts

The single biggest day for the meme was March 11, 2020, when @RandyEmillio's SpongeBob post alone hit 8.3 million views and the WHO declared COVID-19 a global pandemic.

The Infographics Show's "Why 2020 Will Be a Horrible Year" video from November 2019 turned out to be accidentally prophetic, gaining over 1.4 million views as events kept proving it right.

Mashable's article about the trend was published the exact same day COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, capturing the meme at its absolute peak.

Derivatives & Variations

SpongeBob chaos edits:

@RandyEmillio's March 11 post popularized pairing SpongeBob disaster scenes with "2020 is gonna be our year" captions, spawning many imitators[3].

Clown Makeup crossover:

obesewan_canoli's November 2019 Reddit post merged the catchphrase with the "Putting on Clown Makeup" progression format, one of the earliest meme adaptations of the phrase[3].

World War 3 memes:

The January 3 U.S.-Iran escalation spawned its own meme wave that heavily overlapped with "2020 will be better" jokes, sharing the same ironic structure[3].

Frequently Asked Questions