After news of the US airstrike on Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani broke Thursday night, scores of people took to Twitter to share their thoughts on the matter.

More than 1.92 million Tweets using the hashtag "WWIII" have been posted since Thursday night, with the number rapidly rising.

The nature of the Tweets is to make light of a situation that has many Americans and citizens in other countries feeling terrified.

Some users spoke to Insider to explain what memes had to do with fear and grief around the situation.

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Millions of people went to bed Thursday night, or woke up Friday morning to news of the United States' airstrike that killed Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani. Within minutes, Twitter exploded with users Tweeting about the attack. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Julian Castro were quick to condemn Trump for his actions, but many others reacted differently to the news. The hashtags "WWIII," "WorldWarThree" and "IranWar," and other variations, have each been trending since the news broke Thursday — suggesting the grim speculation that the international conflict could boil over.

Despite the severity of the implications of a third world war, many people tweeting were offering comedic responses to the situation including old Vines, gifs, and memes joking about a potential draft reinstatement, becoming friends with Iranians, or the hypothetical scenario of seeing loved ones on the front lines.

The memes may seem morbid when considering the uncertain nature of the international conflict, but they beg the question of how internet users, and in particular young people, are digesting the chaotic and unstable moment we're living in, and why they're choosing to respond with humor.

Deena Allen, a 16-year-old from Michigan, said she first heard about the news from listening to her dad watching CNN in the adjacent room.

"We knew it would happen—we prayed it wouldn't—but it happened," Allen said of the strike.

Her Tweet shows a TikTok of a young boy walking on a sidewalk, smiling and mimicking gunshots, under the caption "Me walking through the battlefield after I get drafted.#WWIII" has now been liked by 13.8 thousand people and retweeted over 2,000 times.

Allen says humor is often her first reaction to hearing bad news.

"Humor is my top tier coping mechanism," she said. "At first I was looking [on Twitter] and was thinking this is really bad, and then I was like, why am I laughing?"

Allen is not the first and certainly not the last to post a lighthearted Tweet referencing a potential draft. Countless of other Tweets have gone viral that reference either getting drafted, avoiding getting drafted, or what will happen if you're drafted.

Twenty-four-year-old Arizonian resident Marshall Clark said he believes Twitter is a great way to deal with one's emotions when confronted with a serious issue.

"There is nothing I, or the majority of Twitter users can do about the issue besides sit and wait to see what happens. So, humor is a good way to dissolve stress," Clark said.

His Tweet that now has more than 20,000 likes 3,500 retweets makes fun of his own personal feelings about how he himself handles and interprets Friday's news. The Tweet shows two images of the character Mike from the film "Monsters Inc." On the side with the smiling Mike it says "me laughing at memes," and on the side with the scared Mike, "me when I actually get drafted."

Nathan Burcher, an 18-year-old Twitter user with more than 20,000 likes on his Tweet about using large amounts of illegal drugs to avoid a potential draft, said he likes to check Twitter to see how people react to the news. As a United Kingdom native, Burcher confessed he worries the US-Iran relations may affect the rest of the world as well.

"Social media also has a massive impact on the way the world deals with different situations," he added.

Despite the fact that the humor used to cope with the current threatening situation may seem out of touch, memes seemingly played a pivotal role in the incidents leading up to the bombing. Soleimani and Trump are both noted fans of memes, and Soleimani used one to taunt Trump on social media, according to The Washington Post.

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