Recently, the dancing Ghanaian/Ghanian pallbearers have been setting social media alight with their strangely upbeat dancing ritual as they bear a coffin on their shoulders. They have become incredibly popular for the way they juxtapose an occasion of grieving with a celebration. This has inspired Indian police to create awareness videos and flooded social media with some very funny memes.
The dancing Ghanaian pallbearers became famous about a couple of years ago. The BBC interviewed the man behind the idea. Apparently this ritual was devised for those who want a more upbeat funeral. It is also meant to generate employment for young people who need jobs.
The usually solemn act of carrying a coffin is now a performance; a celebration of sorts and there are many who want this for their own funeral.
This is a club performance in Taiwan modeled after the now famous Ghanian pallbearers.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve heard the rumours about the death of North Korean despot Kim Jong Un.
The Kim Jong Un pallbearer meme is now a thing. Truth be told, these jokes practically write themselves.
There are now social media filters for those who want to replace the faces of the pallbearers with their own. Here they went with a dog's face.
Now during the time of COVID-19 when the authorities are trying to send out the message to stay indoors, the Ghanian pallbearer meme has become macabrely appropriate. People were appreciative of the Tamil Nadu police's awareness video based on the Ghanian pallbearers.
Not sure whether that is a real dead body but those Indian policemen seem quite inspired by the Ghanaian pallbearers.
This is one version of some people interpreting the pallbearers’ ritual in their own way; supposedly in China.
This strange after-death ritual seems bizarrely appropriate for a variety of situations.
Someone also decided to adapt the Ghanaian pallbearers' meme to another very prevalent online trend of repurposing medieval and Victorian images for modern contexts.
Perhaps we can deal better with grief and loss if we remember to celebrate the living? The Ghanian pallbearers’ strange upbeat dancing ritual seems to have tickled people’s funny bone in these dark, dystopian, Coronavirus-dominated times.
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