Some people were thrilled when President Rodrigo Duterte yesterday announced that he was going to offer a cool PHP10 million (US$196,853) reward to any Filipino who can come up with a vaccine against COVID-19. A 28-year-old receptionist named Janssen Yap, however, used it as an inspiration to come up with a meme that proved to be a hit among thousands of netizens.
Yap posted two images yesterday: one was a tweet from ABS-CBN reporting about Duterte’s reward. Right beside it was an image captioned with “Me, who is money-obsessed” and showed Yap pretending to concoct a vaccine using a slew of various liquids, such as vinegar, lotion, insecticide, cooking oil, and dishwashing soap.
Making it even more hilarious was another caption that Yap wrote on top of his image, saying, “I think I need more garlic.”
Read: Money, Money, Money: Duterte offers PHP10M reward to Filipino who invents COVID-19 vaccine
Many thought the cute meme was hilarious and it quickly became viral, having been shared almost 16,000 times since it appeared. Coconuts Manila interviewed Yap on Facebook Messenger today, and he said that the meme was something he created for friends and family.
“It was actually meant for our group chat where we normally share articles and memes from time to time to kill boredom! When I posted it, I didn’t expect that it would go viral,” he said in English and Filipino.
He took his own photo last night at home using his phone’s timer, and the “ingredients” of his DIY vaccine were just objects lying around his home. Yap was multi-tasking—the image was taken while he was frying tocino (bacon) for dinner!
“All of them (props) were in the kitchen, even the Nivea lotion, when I got home it was just on the table,” he said. “I live in a studio apartment where the space is very limited. So almost all of my groceries are dumped in one place.”
Yap said he was “shocked” when the meme went viral.
“I was just cooking tocino when I realized that so many people were sending me messages. Also [I was] flattered that they found it funny,” he said.
Do you know of any other hilarious COVID-19-related memes? Share it with us by tweeting to @CoconutsManila.
