A young Cuban turned an old phrase associated with the exodus from the island into a sharp critique of the energy crisis: for decades, it was joked that "the last one should turn off the Morro," but now, she says, there was no need to wait for everyone to leave.
"Neither did I leave, nor did it extinguish," he quipped.
The young woman, identified on Instagram as @sshantl.avs, posted a video in which she laments, with a mix of irony and resignation, that she never even had the chance to be the one to "turn off the Morro." The power outages affecting Cuba got to her first.
"We were so worried about who was going to turn off the Morro. What a shame," he begins.
The expression "the last one to turn off the Morro" has been part of the Cuban popular imagination for decades and gained particular strength during the migration crisis of the 1990s, amid the Special Period.
The phrase refers to the lighthouse of the Castle of the Three Kings of Morro, one of the most recognizable symbols of Havana, and it contains a bittersweet joke about emigration: if everyone ends up leaving Cuba, the last person will be responsible for turning off the light before departing.
But the young woman found in the current electrical crisis a new twist on an expression that several generations of Cubans know all too well.
"I would have liked to be the one who extinguished the Morro. If I had known that, I would have wished to be the one who put out the Morro, because it was extinguished too soon," she comments with laughter.
Then he directs the mockery straight at the deteriorated National Electro-Energy System (SEN).
"The SEN can't handle two rechargeable lamps; it's not going to handle the light at the Morro. I hadn't even left and it went out," he concludes.
Beyond the joke, the phrase connects two of the major crises that have marked the lives of Cubans in recent years: emigration and power outages.
It is precisely at the end of the video when the young woman reworks the old popular expression to adapt it to contemporary Cuba.
"The question is not who is going to turn off the Morro, the question is who is going to lift the SEN," he stated.
His followers quickly joined in on the irony.
"It's not about who will turn it off, it's about who will turn it on," wrote a user in one of the comments that received the most reactions.
Another left a phrase that brings the joke back to the migratory drama that gave rise to it: "For the one who extinguished the Morro, there are still Cubans remaining on the Island."
Satire takes on special significance amid one of the most critical moments for the Cuban electric system.
Cuba has suffered during 2026 repeated collapses of the SEN and generation deficits exceeding 2,100 MW, while blackouts extend for a significant part of the day in numerous areas.
In the midst of this scenario, humor has once again become a channel for Cubans to express their frustration over situations they have little control over.
Comedians like Ulises Toirac and Otto Ortiz have also recently turned to satire to depict endless days without electricity and the official explanations regarding a crisis for which no immediate solution seems to be in sight.
The video by @sshantl.avs adds to that Cuban tradition of turning adversity into humor, even though the problem remains intact behind the laughter.
In another post from a few days ago, the same content creator sarcastically and without filters captured the deterioration of law enforcement. In the clip, the woman dismantles the image of the feared "Black Wasps" and describes today's agents as figures that do not inspire respect or authority.
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