Shakira did it again. The Colombian singer posted on her official Instagram account a photograph that stopped social media in its tracks: a recreation of her most beloved internet meme, the one where she is sitting in front of a turned-off computer in the newsroom of a Colombian newspaper.
In the new image, Shaki poses on a turquoise office chair with wheels, in front of a retro-style desk, wearing a cream-colored strap jumpsuit and white sneakers. The nod to the original is flawless. And the caption, with her characteristic humor, topped it all off: “I have the impression that I’ve seen this some time ago.”
The post surpassed 870,000 likes and more than 12,600 comments in just a few hours, with fans from around the world overflowing in the comments.
Reactions came quickly. "The meme has become canon," wrote one user. "STOP EVERYTHING, Shakira has revived the meme," exclaimed another. The official MTV Sur account limited itself to just one word: "legendary." And perhaps the comment that best captured the collective feeling was this: "Mom, you already won, I don't know exactly what, but you won."
Other fans were equally creative: "This photo is UNESCO heritage," "Officially 30 more years of relevance," and "The meme has been updated, and we love it." But where does this meme come from that has been part of the collective imagination of the internet for almost three decades?
The story behind the original meme
Everything began in 1997, when a very young Shakira visited the editorial office of the newspaper El Heraldo de Barranquilla to promote her album Pies descalzos. The photojournalist Óscar Berrocal photographed her sitting at the desk of journalist Patricia Escobar, in the youth section "Pelaos" of the newspaper.
The detail that changed everything: the computer monitor was off.
The image lay dormant in the archive for more than twenty years until it resurfaced on social media in 2018 and became an international meme, used to joke about the art of "pretending to work" in front of a black screen.
The meme lives on, and it has a new version
The recreation of 2026 arrives at one of the most significant moments of Shakira's career, who performed at the final of the 2026 World Cup alongside Madonna and Justin Bieber, and has eleven concerts scheduled in Madrid between September and October to conclude her world tour Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran.
The new photo updates the meme with a printer that churns out a picture of a golden dog, replacing the turned-off computer from the nineties. The spirit, however, is exactly the same: Shakira sitting there, looking pensive, in an office that seems to be from another era.
The internet is clear: the original meme from 1997 has just received its official 2.0 version, and according to its fans, it is "officially 30 years more relevant."
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