ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - The Anchorage Museum will include social media reactions to the powerful earthquake that rocked Alaska for its archived historical record.
The collection will include viral memes and other Facebook and Twitter responses to the Nov. 30 quake that struck 7 miles (11 kilometers) north of Anchorage, Alaska Public Media reported .
The magnitude 7.0 earthquake damaged roads and structures, but caused no widespread catastrophic damage. It has been followed by thousands of aftershocks.
Museum director Julie Decker said the internet is where stories and photos are being shared.
“They’re really a record of our time, that kind of popular culture response,” Decker said. “That human response really tells the story the best, so we’re making sure we document those.”
She pointed to a popular meme that featured a mock five-day Alaska forecast calling for conditions to escalate to “ice locusts” and a “polarbearcano.”
The meme was created by Anchorage web developer Steve Keller, who posted it on Facebook the day after the quake. He said he he’d had enough after hearing that the weekend forecast called for a storm and strong wind gusts.
“I was not in a good place; I don’t think many of us were,” Keller said. “When I heard that forecast - that we were looking at high winds and snow - I was like, “This is getting absolutely Biblical.”
Besides collecting memes, the museum invited Alaskans to share their earthquake poetry online in the week following the quake.
For her, the pop culture and poems show something vital about the state.
“There’s kind of this empowered nature in Alaska, to the memes and other things that are going out there,” she said. “I think that’s really revealing about our character and our story, and I think that’s what we convey to outsiders - ’We got this.’”
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