Instead, the bulk of its new usage has been alongside various traveling mishaps, as if America’s Funniest Home Videos had a summer vacation edition. Travelers share their underwhelming lodgings, their water sport accidents, or just about anything strange or disappointing that would never be advertised or shared by a brand-sponsored TikTok traveler. The spelt-out reminder of “You can save £50 per person! That’s £200 off for a family of four!” only serves to underline the difference between the excitement of the down payment and the facts of the experience.
According to the UN World Tourism Barometer, there were 300 million international tourists worldwide in the first three months of 2025 alone. With over a third of the world’s population jetting to somewhere more exotic, going on vacation is more normalized than ever, and as a result, so are its potential misfortunes.
Relatability-obsessed internet culture loves an “expectations vs. reality” moment, and being a tourist can offer plenty of opportunity for that. “Paris syndrome” was a term first coined in the 1980s to describe the disillusionment of Japanese tourists after visiting the French capital. It is arguably something that an even wider group of people in many different destinations are susceptible to today. With the industry of social media bringing awareness to more tourist locations for their highlight reels, the lowlights inevitably follow.
While the appeal of the Jet2 meme has spread worldwide, its origins are profoundly British. It has led English voice actress Zoe Lister to express bafflement at its international appeal. The national origins matter because the UK is where some of the first package holidays were launched (i.e., vacations where the cost of travel, accommodation, and food are combined). Beginning in the mid-20th century to numerous destinations in Europe, package tour operators converted a large proportion of British people into eager/annoying travelers across the continent, even if the hotel was much dingier than the photos and the breakfast buffet induced food poisoning. The motto of Jet2 holidays is telling in its claim of “package holidays you can trust.”
Pre-worldwide virality, the ubiquity of the advertisements, and the fact that “Hold My Hand” played on all Jet2 planes made the publicity campaign notorious (even Lister admitted to hearing herself on a flight before). “You know you’re going on holiday now with my song, so you’re welcome,” Jess Glynne remarked dryly back in 2023. The meme is so popular in the UK that even club DJs play the song, including a version where Lister reads her lines live.
The reasons for the runaway popularity of this trend in the UK and beyond are many. It starts with a jingle so infectious that it has now escaped the theme of “travel gone wrong” and is being applied to both positive experiences and general mishaps. However, at its heart is the contention between the several days of paradise on which we are convinced to spend our disposable income and the sometimes unpleasant surprises that follow.
The UN Tourism Barometer has also found that, time and again, the biggest concerns affecting international tourism are economic factors. The cost of vacationing itself or having enough money to even consider it is already expensive. The value for money that the Jet2 advert boasts is of great importance to the average tourist. If the experience of that long-awaited break turns out to be a disaster, perhaps its memory can be salvaged by making a dumb TikTok about the experience.
The meme isn’t just a reaction from the jaded traveller. It also works alongside a growing anti-tourist sentiment found in many vacation hotspots across the world. As tourists grow into a group big enough to start an inescapable global trend, so do the dissenting voices living in the places that they frequent.
This distaste for disrespectful tourists has been found everywhere! From Barcelona, Spain, which made headlines last year when protesters squirted tourists with water g-ns, to Hawaii, where anger against over tourism picked up speed after resorts swiftly reopened following wildfires in 2023. It might not always prove a deterrent to the volume of visitors eager for a new backdrop to their IG posts, but it provides an extra backdrop to the sardonic travellers partaking in the Jet2 sound.
A change of scenery and a different cultural experience mean that vacations are a natural source for content ideas, whether that comes through the achievable aspiration in a TV advertisement or the exacting glamor of an influencer. We know that the hype isn’t always justified, but authenticity and disappointment don’t always come in the form of a sanctimonious complaint. Every seasoned traveller knows not to trust the brochure, or its 2025 equivalent. Sometimes the memories we make are not the kind that we hoped for, but at least they play well to an audience.
