12/22/12 / 12:01 A.M
A african kids dancing post.
The meeting that was meant to run an hour is cancelled with four minutes' notice. You tell nobody. You close the laptop lid slowly, then do a small private shuffle beside your desk. Payday lands at 00:01 and you check the app just to watch the number. It's a good number for about nine hours, until the rent leaves. Until then, you're a person of means. A friend texts "pub?" at ten to five on a Friday. You were already holding your coat. You reply "maybe" for the look of the thing. The rain stops the moment you step outside, the bus is already at the stop, and your song comes on. Nothing has happened, and you're thrilled anyway. **Why it caught on:** the photo shows a group of barefoot children dancing and grinning on a red dirt road, and people captioned it as pure delight at good news, from Fridays to dates on the calendar. Some captions leaned on tired stereotypes of Africa as a place of hardship or danger, making the children's home the punchline, but the joy in the picture never needed that, and the best-loved posts simply let them celebrate.