Americans awoke to chaos on Friday morning as a global tech outage, apparently caused by a CrowdStrike software-update issue, left travelers wondering what to do after becoming stranded in airports. The blip has essentially ground the world to a halt while pausing healthcare and banking systems with the “blue screen of death.” Reuters has reported that the cybersecurity firm “deployed a fix,” but of course, the chaos will take awhile to clean up, and people are coping as best they can.
Those mechanisms include jokes, which are frankly not the worst way to deal with a situation like this, which hasn’t (that we know of) physically hurt anybody but has sparked a world of frustration. And this honestly is probably the best time possible for a Space Force quip to surface on social media.
Everyone in the world this morning because CrowdStrike caused blue screen of death on microsoft computers pic.twitter.com/Rj5j04gN7G
— Zeebs (@killerzeebs) July 19, 2024
Elsewhere, a modified (but now fixed) Wikipedia entry claimed that the crash triggered the “second dark ages.”
It's already been changed back, but this is funny#Crowdstrike pic.twitter.com/NvPFGsv9mx
— Anthony Bennett (@Anthonydownunda) July 19, 2024
Wikipedia wurde schon aktualisiert. #Crowdstrike #Microsoft #DarkAges #Terminator #Skynet pic.twitter.com/aRj8KEBWh4
— FJN® {Nach Diktat verreist} (@Echtkunde) July 19, 2024
It's already been changed back, but this is funny#Crowdstrike pic.twitter.com/NvPFGsv9mx
— Anthony Bennett (@Anthonydownunda) July 19, 2024
And of course, a situation like this wouldn’t be complete without jokes about James Cameron’s The Terminator (which will soon launch a new Netflix anime series, by the way), and here we are:
I wake up to hear about a global computer outage and the first thing my nerdy ass thinks of is that Skynet is self aware and is starting to take over. pic.twitter.com/0MPhGYOo3u
— Michael Hart (@Mhart) July 19, 2024
The only logical explanation…#Skynet pic.twitter.com/idrGeZ9Zvb
— Jake Sparrow ☠️ (@jakep79202) July 19, 2024
*Wake up and see Skynet trending with crowdstrike*
*Also Me:* I knew this day would come.
James Cameron has been preparing me. pic.twitter.com/m0zCoS5SXu— MKiwi🥝 (@MKiwi980) July 19, 2024
Terminator's 'Skynet' was the first thing that came to my mind when this event began to unfold, tbh https://t.co/KfdHMhgHHt
— Andrei Marasigan 🇵🇭 (@Dreifinition) July 19, 2024
At least it was Friday when Skynet(CrowdStrike) was created.. pic.twitter.com/9jzN72pde4
— ᏕᏂᎥᏝᏝᏕᎮᏋᏗᏒᏋ | Faces | Objkt (@Shillspeare) July 19, 2024
Happy Friday? This has kickstarted the weekend early for a few people, but boy, being in an airport would not be fun right now.