From Tiktok Clips to New Year’s Fireworks: the Visual Rise of the Jet2 Meme
By Marcus Vance
The rise of the Jet2 holiday meme exposes a unique quirk of British internet culture: an intense affection for mundane commercial kitsch. Where American viral culture often skews toward personality-driven drama or high-production creator stunts, British humor regularly fixates on the most unglamorous artifacts of everyday life.
Previous examples follow this exact lineage. The viral veneration of the We Buy Any Car jingle, parodies of local car dealership adverts, and affectionate mockery of Barry Scott's Cillit Bang commercials demonstrate the same impulse. There is an inherent comfort in shared domestic banality. Package holidays to Benidorm or Majorca, complete with allocated luggage allowances and pool-side deckchair battles, are working-class British institutions.
Placing that specific voiceover into the London NYE soundtrack was an acknowledgment of that reality. It broke the self-serious pomposity of a multi-million-pound fireworks display by winking directly at the crowd. For three seconds on the Thames, the formal pomp of a capital city gave way to the universal experience of boarding a budget flight to Spain.
Marcus Vance is a cybersecurity auditor and technology writer dedicated to educating the public about online safety, data privacy regulations, enterprise security, and emerging cyber threats.
