The Last Normal Photo On Your Phone: The Social Media Hit Giving Us All Pause For Thought

There’s so much talk of the new normal, but what we’re all really hankering after is our old normal normal, isn’t it? There lies the beauty of the social media trend that went viral this weekend, The Last Normal Photo On Your Phone.

The BBC had asked people to send their pictures of the last normal picture in their phone earlier in lockdown, and this weekend published some of the stories behind the pictures – from weddings to school runs.

Then, this weekend, journalist Robyn Vinter asked people to share their last pics, inspired by the piece – and has, at the time of writing, had almost 8,000 responses, including one from Monica Lewinsky. It was the talk of social media this weekend, and a challenge that captured all our imaginations.

Last week, seemed a particularly bad one for everyone I know, I don’t know about you. That now infamous Sunday night message from Boris Johnson seemed to send everyone reeling with its strange mix of occasion and importance with nothingness, stasis and helplessness. I would bet most of us started last Monday having had a sleepless night full of questions, confusion and itchy impatience for more answers. Stay alert, the Prime Minister told us – and willingly my brain seemed to until the early hours.

From breakdowns to headaches to fury and sadness, at least among those that I know and speak to regularly, the week that followed was full of emotion. And a lot of it was in frustration at the inability to contemplate or understand what our new normal might be – and when, if ever, we’d get there.

So, when the BBC and Robyn Vinter joined social forces this weekend it was a perfect antidote. A moment not to see the past as a source of sadness and grief, but to reframe it as a source of celebration and pride – it was time to show those pictures off rather than flick through them glumly.

But, the only glitch, I found, was trying to decide what to post. What was really the last normal photo in my phone, after all?

As a journalist, coronavirus in Wuhan appeared in my life and consciousness earlier than for most. I’ll readily admit to being a naysayer as panicked conversations started in a past that seems unthinkable now. But the conversations and the niggling concern started early. In hindsight, is everything after that still included in normal times, given what came next?

The day before the night lockdown was announced, pictures show my little boy sat eating his breakfast and watching the Grazia conference on Teams, because his nursery had shut down. Not there.

A week earlier and it's my last day in the office - I'm wandering around a supermarket without queuing, but I'm with my friend, because her office has closed and she's working from home. I'm closer than six feet to her - and the strangers around me don't register as a life threat. So there's that. But I remember the anxiousness, running back to scrub my hands and speaking to her about my worries of getting the train home.

The weekend before that, I'm trying (a LOT of times) to get a decent picture of my newly blonded hair. Yes, HAIRDRESSERS! Remember those. But, I also remember thinking about the irony of getting my hair done, when no one was going to be seeing it nicely blow-dried again for some time - or in person when it comes to my friends. Though I didn't know how long.

The night before I'm at a friend's house, we're jokily passing around her boyfriend's saxophone (I don't know, we'd drunk a lot). I sucked the reed to get the noise going, before we passed it around. Now that is different world stuff. But we were supposed to have met at a crowded night in Camden, that we'd backed out of and they'd then closed down anyway. Our night was full of weird, stunted conversations about what the hell was about to happen.

As I scroll back, there are pictures of me shoved in lifts with friends, my son licking various surfaces, a train journey hundreds of miles to Edinburgh, a sign about washing my hands, living room scenes with Liverpool FC playing live in the background.

What I guess I'm saying is all I see as I scroll is not a definite old normal, but a gradual freeing backwards of my mind - to a time where, slowly, slowly my brain becomes freer of the constant presence of coronavirus danger, death and grief.

It's quite amazing to watch and in lots of ways heartening. If there's a before, there can be an after. For now, while we wait to see how long it will be until our brains gain that freedom again, we'll have to do the best we can to enjoy those pictures.

READ MORE: Life and love in lockdown