Yes, The Mayor Has Seen The 'Where's Lightfoot?' Memes; 'We All Need To Find The Humor'
CHICAGO (CBS) -- When Mayor Lori Lightfoot followed through on her threat to shut down the city's lakefront, Riverwalk, and the 606 trail after seeing too many people gathering in large groups during the coronavirus outbreak, she almost instantly became a meme sensation.
An Instagram account dubbed "Where's Lightfoot" soon started photoshopping images of a stern-looking Lightfoot standing guard all over the city; standing at a barricade on the Lakefront Trail, perched atop the Bean at Millennium Park, even poking her head above the waves of Lake Michigan.
One meme even showed her face lighting up the night sky above downtown Chicago like the bat signal.
One Facebook user even recreated painter Georges Seurat's "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte," depicting Lighftoot glaring at the crowd on the island in one frame, and an empty island in the next frame.
Lightfoot said she's been having fun with the memes with her wife and daughter, even acting out their favorites at home.
"We all need to find the humor, and from humor stems hope," Lightfoot said. "When you have hope, you can heal. Hope is the thing that gets you up in the morning, and propels you over the course of the day, and we need that hope. We need to have that sense that, even in this dark storm, there's light."
While she hasn't hesitated to lay down the law to enforce the governor's "stay at home" order during the COVID-19 crisis, she also showed her softer side in a public service announcement posted on her official social media accounts.
The "Stay Home Save Lives" ad features the mayor urging people to comply with the governor's order, and observe social distancing practice. The video, filmed at Lightfoot's home, shows her writing "stay home" in a pile of flour, singing and playing guitar, and sipping tea after giving an astrology reading.
"Apologies to all the Aries, but if you stay at home now, maybe you can celebrate with the Geminis later," she said.
The PSA also shows Lightfoot making a bet with viewers, while dressed in a White Sox jersey, and watching the 2005 World Series.
"Tell you what, if my White Sox win, you've got to stay home," she says.
