sisyphus (mythology)
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In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was the king of Ephyra who cheated death twice and was thus punished to forever roll a boulder up a hill in the afterlife. Each time he reached the top of the hill, the boulder would roll back down, forcing him to repeat his task for eternity.
Sisyphus gained memetic status in 2023 when the ending quote of Albert Camus' 1942 essay "The Myth of Sisyphus" went viral on TikTok. The quote, "One must imagine Sisyphus happy," was often applied over clips of video game characters pushing a boulder up a hill like Sisyphus, or other videos of people performing futile actions.