Rare UK heatwave has brands, media rushing out witty responses

Complaining about the weather is quintessentially British, so it’s no surprise that this week’s unexpected heat wave has been among the most tweeted about topics, with #hottestdayoftheyear trending today.

Social media teams at media outlets and brands have been having some fun with memes and gifs that wallow in the misery of hottest day of the year so far — and that serve as a somewhat welcome respite from the grinding drama of Brexit.

One of the most popular one doing the rounds is from BBC comedy sketch “The Fast Show,” which featured the late Caroline Aherne coining the catchphrase “Scorchio.”

The particular clip was uploaded on YouTube a few days ago and has had 329,438 views so far on YouTube.

BBC Three, the broadcaster’s youth-focused (now online only) channel, chose the moment to take a leaf out of BuzzFeed’s Watermelon-exploding anticipation format for Facebook Live. It streamed a video of three different ice creams: a Solero; a Magnum and a Cornetto, melting in the sun, and asked viewers to guess which one would melt first.

Others are turning to the hallowed tradition of witty tweets.

Sky Atlantic:

Channel 4’s youth channel E4:

Footy Accumulators:

Digital Spy:

SugarScape:

Red Magazine:

The Telegraph:

 

Naturally, brands also are jumping on on board.

Online retailer Boohoo.com:

Skoda:

XBox:



Zizzi Restaurants:



Kopparberg:

And of course, the popular @VeryBritishProblems:

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