“Nero” trended on Twitter early Monday after a meme of President Trump playing the violin drew viral comparisons to the Roman emperor among his critics online.
On Sunday night, Trump promoted the meme, which was initially shared by White House social media director Dan Scavino, that depicted him calmly smiling as he played the violin. The meme was captioned: “My next piece is called nothing can stop what’s coming.”
When Trump retweeted the post, he wrote: “Who knows what this means, but it sounds good to me!”
In the hours since, droves of his critics have seized on the post, which they have likened to artwork of Nero fiddling as Rome burned.
A number of his critics particularly called out the president for promoting the meme amid fears over the international outbreak of the novel coronavirus, also known as COVID-19.
According to The Washington Post, a few users also noted that the phrase “Nothing can stop what’s coming” is used by “QAnon” conspiracy theorists.
The viral reactions eventually prompted “Nero” to trend on Twitter Monday morning as the Trump administration continues to field pressure from the public and Democrats amid the coronavirus outbreak, which has infected more than 100,000 across the globe and killed more than 3,000.
But although scientists have yet to discover a vaccine for the virus, data from the Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering showed that more than 60,000 people had recovered from the virus as of Sunday night.