AWS outage sparks internet memes

Monday’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage left businesses offline, but online, memes thrived.

On Monday, 20th October, a serious outage occurred with AWS in offices across the globe, affecting everything from retail (with the supplier itself) to gaming, banking, and office services.

Diverse sectors were affected, but what unites us all is our ability to laugh at the situation. Here’s a selection of the best memes we’ve found.

The dreaded Monday

However you spend the weekend, for the majority, Monday morning is all about cranking the brain into gear for whatever tasks need to be done.

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As someone who enjoyed British sitcom The IT Crowd, this meme on X particularly captured the mood of frustration in our office, especially considering the beautiful blue-skied autumnal background set temptingly outside.

Monday morning. Feeling energised, ready to work. See AWS is down... pic.twitter.com/EDWtrWhNcp
undefined SMRSocial (@SMRSocial) October 20, 2025

The crux of the problem

When CEOs are gleeful about AI, I always wonder if it crosses their mind what they’ll say when it sputters out. So much is made of the runaway train of AI, that today's outage may or may not be because of this “caught you out there buddy!” style shot.

AWS is down

and all the startups are dead in the water

All thanks to that one AI Agent. pic.twitter.com/KUwcY9HlUb
undefined Mohit Goyal (@ByteMohit) October 20, 2025

What it'll cost them

What this next meme lacks in wit, it sure makes up for in impact. I was personally writing an article today on animation, and this shows two muscular workers shovelling money into a furnace. Time will tell if this will deal a major reputational blow to Amazon or not.

It was hard to track down, but the animation is from Nickelodeon's now-ancient TheFairly OddParents (2006), which makes it even weirder and more effective.

AWS is down, and so is half the internet!

Monday morning will be fun without @SlackHQ , @asana or @Xero pic.twitter.com/3djfPkQcfe
undefined Jon Munson 🎸 (@jonmunson) October 20, 2025

Safe from disaster

Over on Bluesky, there were a couple of golden nuggets. Firstly this effort works really well in terms of what constitutes a modern disaster. It’s satirical and thought-provoking, as what might actually happen if all operating systems went kaput all at once. I loathe to imagine.

flightthroughentirety.com

[image or embed]
undefined Fright Through Entirety 🧛 (@flightthroughentirety.com) October 20, 2025 at 12:47 PM

Every nook and cranny

I’ve always liked a meme with a grain of authenticity. Rather than churn out any auld shite, @oli on Bluesky has blessed us with a tongue-in-cheek take on how the interruption has spread to Scotland.

Edinburgh castle failing to render, likely thanks to the AWS outage

[image or embed]
undefined oli (@olil.bsky.social) October 20, 2025 at 11:35 AM

Viral anecdote

And this one takes the cake. A little snippet of how trolling can be fun in the best way possible, back over on X @sandislonjsak made a plausible tall-tale, and better still bantered with a whole load of the reactions. Sandi, you take the crown.

Today is my first day at AWS.

I noticed a small bug in DynamoDB clustering implementation and I think I fixed it.

Shipped to prod already.

Going to make a coffee and will check back if everything is working.
undefined Sandi Slonjšak (@sandislonjsak) October 20, 2025

Over and out(age). Yikes.