Last week, we told you how, while nurses and doctors risk their lives to help people afflicted with ebola in West Africa, people in the west are joking about it. Not only are they suggesting it’s been planted on purpose for population control (thanks, Chris Brown, but conspiracy theories aren’t helpful, especially when they’re backed up with racist jokes), but they’re making up memes to laugh at this serious matter to show how little it's affecting them. It was one thing when it was only affecting West Africa, even though it's killed thousands (it's now got a death rate of 70 per cent, having killed over 4,500 people). But now it’s threatening to kill just a few people in the west? It’s worth taking notice of it if only to take the piss out of it on social media.
And now, not only content with getting a twisted giggle out of a follower on Instagram or Twitter, people are now trying to turn any worries about ebola – people are terrified they’re going to die, you see – into a money making opportunity for themselves.
READ MORE: Chris Brown Isn't The Only One Making Stupid Jokes About Ebola
Thanks to the internet’s tiresome capability of allowing users to turn any sort of boring tired ‘joke’ (see: every single adaptation of the ‘Keep Calm’ T-shirt) into a Fruit of the Loom-style T-shirt, people have taken those ebola memes and made them physical. First off, there’s a T-shirt saying: ‘I went to Nigeria and all I got was this lousy T-shirt. And ebola’ which is both gross, and also factually inaccurate, if you consider that Nigeria has managed to contain ebola.
Over on Etsy, someone’s selling a cross-stitched image of the ebola virus along with the lettering ‘EBOLA’ as if there’s something cute about the squiggly shaped killer organism. There are also £63 necklaces featuring the image of the virus on. The seller, HelenasJewelry, who also does a line in ‘pray to end ebola’ candles, does donate to ebola-related charities: ‘a portion of each sale goes to support SIM Ebola Crisis in Liberia’ but we do wonder how big this portion is, and whether ebola is meant to be a cute collectable.
READ MORE: Chris Brown's 'Joke' About Rimming Has Got Political All Of A Sudden
One supposedly productive product positioned for an ebola-fearing customer base is the Ebola Tracker app, which collates news data to locate the hotspots where the virus is. It’s yours for $2.99 (£1.85), although you’d sort of think that if you were in danger of ebola coming to your hometown, you might get a heads up from your government. Plus, are we really meant to be reassured by the fact that there are huge white-hot hotspots over Liberia? And didn't we basically know that already?
A plus side to the app is that it gives users a little rundown of what ebola is, and hopefully explains to users that chances of their contracting it are seriously low. And that they probably don’t need an app to tell them that…
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Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.