“We saw ‘vaccinated’ posts all over social media. Many of the people posting also posted which vaccine they received, and it seemed like people took a lot of pride in this,” Mr. Lee said. “We gave the people what they were looking for.” They said they’ve almost a hundred items, and other Etsy shops provide similar apparel.
Ellyn Marsh, a Broadway actress, knew she struck a chord when she posted a video on TikTok where she was pretending to dance in a club and bragging over the music about which vaccine she got. “It got a million and a half views really quickly,” she said. “I was like OK, ‘This is something people want to talk about.’”
She’s continued the parodies. A clip she posted last week showed Pfizer and Moderna as “frenemies,” gossiping on the phone about Johnson & Johnson’s pause. “I’m just delivering,” announced Pfizer, looking glamorous while sipping champagne.
Ms. Marsh made these videos after observing the behavior of people around her. “People were talking on social media about their symptoms, their first dose, the second dose, which vaccine they got,” she said. “I just found it all really funny.” She also noticed she felt loyalty to her vaccine. “I did get Pfizer,” she said. “I am happy, I am lucky, I am grateful.”
TikTok users as far away as Germany, Brazil, Croatia, and Portugal left comments.
The gist of them: you should feel lucky you got any vaccine. “I was Google translating some of them, and they were such an eye opener for me,” she said. “In other countries they were crossing a finger for any vaccine, and here we are comparing our vaccines and our symptoms. It’s like ‘OK, we need to check our privilege.’”
Still, turning something that is ultimately a medical procedure involving needles into a trendy bragging right might serve a higher purpose. “I think it helps counter the anti-vax people,” Mr. Thomas said. “It gets people to do something by making it cool, fun, and visible.”
“I think my wife and I should get different shirts that say Pfizer and Moderna,” he added. “It will get the word out that, ‘Hey, we got vaccines, and they are all good.”
