People Were Feeling ‘Leave The World Behind’ Vibes When AT&T Customers Experienced A Widespread Outage

As Americans woke up on Thursday morning to reports of a nationwide phone outage, Leave the World Behind quickly started trending on social media as people couldn’t help but notice the similarities between the film and the current predicament. Although, don’t worry, no one has been attacked by a Tesla. Yet.

The situation began as the two biggest cell phone providers, AT&T and Verizon, were plagued by user outages. Reports started coming in that other providers like Cricket and T-Mobile were also having issues, which sparked a panic on social media. However, it appears that the numbers may be overblown.

According to the Associated Press, only AT&T experienced a sizable outage and in the early morning:

AT&T had more than 73,000 outages around 9:30 a.m. ET, in locations including Houston, Atlanta and Chicago. The outages began at approximately 3:30 a.m. ET. The carrier has more than 240 million subscribers, the country’s largest.

“Some of our customers are experiencing wireless service interruptions this morning. We are working urgently to restore service to them. We encourage the use of Wi-Fi calling until service is restored,” AT&T said in a statement.

From there, the outages broke down as followed: Cricket had 13,000, Verizon had 4,000, T-Mobile had 1,800, and Boost had only 700. As for the panic that made Down Detector also start to trend, a spokesperson from T-Mobile put the situation in perspective.

“Our network is operating normally. Down Detector is likely reflecting challenges our customers were having attempting to connect to users on other networks,” T-Mobile said in a statement to the AP.

Of course, facts and figures go right out the window when a viral meme is in play. Folks on social media went hog wild referencing Leave the World Behind, which featured a global cyber attack that unfolded in stages. The first step: isolation. Cell phone networks were taken down in preparation for the apocalyptic attack, and people were absolutely getting that vibe this morning.

You can see some of the reactions below:

— Ben Nicoara (@BenNicoara) February 22, 2024

It’s weird not having cell service ngl

Fact that they’re all down is also very sus

Some Leave The World Behind shit https://t.co/ueuXJ7wLRA

— Hek (@hekyoda) February 22, 2024

How many people who woke up to the headline about widespread phone outages and immediately thought about Netflix's "Leave the World Behind" (I did)

A good day to stay off the LI beaches and avoid getting hit by an oil tanker, I guess

— Will Bunch (@Will_Bunch) February 22, 2024

Hmm AT&T giving leave the world behind vibes today idk. pic.twitter.com/UIJLnfJHaJ