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Broken Working Traffic Light Relatable Work Burnout Meme

This is a single panel relatable meme. Text at the top of the image reads 'Me being broken but still working because I need money to exist'. Below the text is a photograph of a heavily damaged traffic light hanging loosely from its mounting post by thin wires, visibly broken and nearly detached, but its red indicator light is still illuminated and functional. A blue directional road sign with two straight ahead arrows and a Cyrillic 'СТОП' (stop) sign are also mounted on the same pole, against a grey overcast sky. The humor comes from the comparison between the broken but still operating traffic light and burnt out people who continue working despite struggling, because they need income to cover basic living costs.
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Me being broken but still working because I need money to exist

Overview

This is a single panel relatable meme. Text at the top of the image reads 'Me being broken but still working because I need money to exist'. Below the text is a photograph of a heavily damaged traffic light hanging loosely from its mounting post by thin wires, visibly broken and nearly detached, but its red indicator light is still illuminated and functional. A blue directional road sign with two straight ahead arrows and a Cyrillic 'СТОП' (stop) sign are also mounted on the same pole, against a grey overcast sky. The humor comes from the comparison between the broken but still operating traffic light and burnt out people who continue working despite struggling, because they need income to cover basic living costs.

Origin notes

This meme was distributed via the RSS feed of the X.com (formerly Twitter) account @WholesomeMeme. The underlying photograph of the damaged functional traffic light is a widely circulated viral image, to which relatable text about work burnout and financial necessity was added to create this meme.

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