# The Cool Zone The Cool Zone is a catchphrase from an April 2020 tweet by former Bernie Sanders volunteer Sean Moorhead, naming the period of American social unrest driven by COVID-19 and the George Floyd Protests. Leftist Twitter users adopted the phrase to describe a historical era that is fun to read about but awful to live through. By June 2020, Vice ran a feature declaring Americans were all living in The Cool Zone. ## Origin On April 8th, 2020, Twitter user @SeanRMoorhead tweeted, 'If unemployment exceeds 30% and distrust of the political process becomes widespread, there is a danger that the United States will enter what historians call The Cool Zone'[2]. The post pulled in over 6,700 retweets and 31,000 likes[4]. Moorhead, identified by Vice as a former Bernie Sanders volunteer, wrote the line as a mock academic prediction about American collapse[1]. - **Platform:** Twitter - **Creator:** Sean Moorhead (@SeanRMoorhead) - **Date:** 2020 ## Overview Posts tagged with The Cool Zone typically treat breaking news footage from the summer of 2020 as if it belonged in a future history textbook, with users quote-tweeting reports of unrest and writing lines like 'we've officially entered The Cool Zone'[6]. The joke works by crashing the dread of living through disaster against the detachment of studying it later[1]. Matt Christman of the podcast Chapo Trap House is credited with the working definition that Twitter settled on: a historical period that is super cool to read about but much less cool to live through[1]. Urban Dictionary user Baldemoto posted a more explicitly revolutionary reading on May 30th, 2020, calling it a period of mass political and economic emancipation caused by the failures of capitalism[8]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is The Cool Zone? A leftist Twitter catchphrase for the stretch of American history around the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 George Floyd Protests, used to label real-time events as the kind of history that is fun to study later but painful to live through[1]. ### Where did The Cool Zone come from? Former Bernie Sanders volunteer Sean Moorhead coined it in an April 8, 2020 tweet predicting the United States would enter 'what historians call The Cool Zone' if unemployment and political distrust spiked[2]. ### What does The Cool Zone mean? Twitter users settled on the gloss popularized by Chapo Trap House host Matt Christman: a historical period cool to read about but much less cool to live through[1]. Urban Dictionary user Baldemoto gave a more explicitly revolutionary reading on May 30, 2020[8]. ### How do you use The Cool Zone? Posters typically quote-tweet or reply to breaking news of unrest or crisis and declare that The Cool Zone has arrived, treating the moment as historical footage in real time, as @lib_crusher did about a looted Target[6]. ### Is The Cool Zone still popular? Peak usage came during May and June 2020 around the George Floyd Protests, with Vice marking the phrase's mainstream moment on June 3, 2020[1]. Mentions tapered as the news cycle shifted, and the phrase is now tied to that specific 2020 period[4]. ## References 1. [https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pkypdg/were-all-living-in-the-cool-zone-now]() 2. [https://twitter.com/SeanRMoorhead/status/1248065386714558465]() 3. [https://twitter.com/willmenaker/status/1258816676721803270]() 4. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-cool-zone]() 5. [https://twitter.com/brompts/status/1266143062889082880]() 6. [https://twitter.com/lib_crusher/status/1266225798341672961]() 7. [https://twitter.com/gloomfather/status/1266405267979284485]() 8. [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=The%20Cool%20Zone]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/the-cool-zone Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library