Jet2 Holiday Meme
Jet2 holiday meme is a TikTok format that plays the Jet2holidays advert voiceover, Zoë Lister saying “Nothing beats a Jet2 holiday” over Jess Glynne’s “Hold My Hand”, under footage of a trip going badly wrong. The joke is the gap between pitch and disaster.
Where the Jet2 holiday meme came from
Jess Glynne released “Hold My Hand” on 22 March 2015. It entered the UK Singles Chart at number one on 29 March 2015 on 97,000 sales and held the top spot for three weeks. Later that year the British travel company Jet2holidays began using it in advertising, and the track stayed with the brand for a decade, running under television spots and, according to ABC News, playing as boarding music on Jet2 flights.
The spoken line belongs to Zoë Lister, a British voiceover artist and actor who appeared in the Channel 4 soap Hollyoaks. In the commercial she reads a straightforward holiday offer, a saving of £50 per person or £200 for a family of four, and closes on the sign-off that became the meme: “Nothing beats a Jet2 holiday.”
Exactly which cut of the advert the meme uses is where accounts stop agreeing. Forbes places the campaign launch in 2022 and the commercial itself in early 2024. Screenshot Media reports that the latest ad was first shown on television in 2022 and that Lister recorded the voiceover roughly eighteen months before July 2025. Meme documentation adds that the spot was uploaded to YouTube in January 2024 and reposted to TikTok that August. Those are compatible, but nobody has published a single authoritative upload date.
The ironic use started in late 2024. Creators began laying the audio over holiday footage in which something goes wrong, so that the confident narration lands exactly as the camera catches the failure. Momentum built through spring 2025. In April 2025 Jet2 ran a lip-sync contest offering flight vouchers, which ABC News credits with pushing the format to a much larger audience. Interest then peaked in July 2025, when “nothing beats a Jet2 holiday” hit an all-time high on Google Trends and became a top breakout search in the lifestyle category.
Reported usage counts differ because they were taken on different days. NBC News cited more than 1.2 million users, Forbes and ABC News both reported around 1.4 million videos, and Screenshot Media put it at 1.8 million uses. The honest summary is well over a million videos by mid-2025. Forbes reported the single most-liked entry, a hotel window reveal, at roughly 35 million likes.
What the Jet2 holiday meme actually means
The format runs on bathos. Advertising audio is engineered to promise a good outcome, so it carries an expectation the video can then break. The narration is not commenting on the footage, which is precisely why it is funny: it keeps selling the holiday while the holiday visibly collapses.
| Element | Literal reading | Ironic reading in the meme |
|---|---|---|
| “Nothing beats a Jet2 holiday” | A closing line in a package holiday advert | A deadpan verdict on whatever just went wrong |
| The “Hold My Hand” build | An upbeat pop chorus signalling a good time | A countdown timer telling viewers the crash is coming |
| “£50 off per person” | A genuine discount offer | Compensation for the incident on screen |
| The bright, warm voice | Standard brand tone | Cheerful narrator who has not noticed the emergency |
Timing carries the whole joke. The line has to arrive at or just after the moment of failure, not before it. Posts that cut the audio early read as a normal travel clip with music; posts that let the vocal swell land on the fall get the laugh. That is the only real craft in the format, which is part of why it spread so widely.
How people actually use it
The base case is a holiday fail. Coverage from NBC News describes viral entries including a person knocked over by the splash from a water slide, a woman narrowly missed by a rebounding axe at a throwing range, and an elephant taking hold of a woman’s face with its trunk. ABC News describes parasailing mishaps and tourists flattened by waves at a water park.
From there it detached from travel entirely. The sound gets used for any moment where an optimistic plan meets reality, which is why you see it on work clips, sports clips and pet clips that have nothing to do with a flight.
It also crossed into mainstream and brand use. Jeff Goldblum recorded a version substituting his own name for Jet2. Jess Glynne acknowledged the trend in interviews, calling it a massive surprise, and performed the song at the Women’s Euro 2025 semi-final in London, encouraging the crowd to finish the voiceover. Jet2 itself joined in, posting videos using the sound, and Forbes reported that the company sponsored a Pride festival in Leeds where drag performers and Lister delivered the narration live.
If you want to build one, the anatomy is short. Pick a clip where the failure is visible in under six seconds. Trim so the disaster sits about two thirds of the way in. Drop the audio so the spoken line resolves on the frame after impact. Add no caption at all, or one flat line of setup text such as the destination and the year. Over-explaining kills it.
Is the Jet2 holiday meme offensive?
The format itself is not. It contains no slur, no adult content and no target beyond the person filming their own bad day, and Jet2 is a real airline being quoted accurately rather than mocked.
One incident made the audio contested. On 30 July 2025 the White House posted a video set to the song depicting deportations, captioned with travel wordplay. Glynne responded that the post made her sick and that her music was about love and unity rather than division. Jet2holidays and Lister also objected to that use. Nothing about the ordinary holiday-fail format inherits that controversy, but it is the reason some people now ask whether the sound is loaded.
What we do not know
- The first ironic upload. No source names a verified patient-zero video with a checkable date. A clip of a camel chasing a tourist is frequently cited as one of the earliest, but the attribution comes from meme documentation rather than reporting, and we could not confirm it.
- Which cut of the advert. Sources variously date the commercial to 2022 and to early 2024. Both may be true of different edits of the same long-running campaign.
- The video counts. Figures between 1.2 million and 1.8 million were all published within weeks of each other in mid-2025. Treat any single number as a snapshot, not a total.
- Longevity. The measurable peak was July 2025. Whether the sound survives as a permanent reaction audio or fades like most seasonal formats is not yet settled.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Jet2 holiday meme?
It is a TikTok format that pairs the Jet2holidays advert voiceover with footage of a trip going wrong. The cheerful narration runs over a fall, a crash or a ruined view, and the mismatch is the joke.
What song is used in the Jet2 holiday meme?
The music is Hold My Hand by Jess Glynne, released on 22 March 2015. It went to number one in the UK, and Jet2holidays has used it in advertising since late 2015.
Who says nothing beats a Jet2 holiday?
The voiceover artist is Zoë Lister, a British actor who appeared in the Channel 4 soap Hollyoaks. She recorded the line for the Jet2holidays campaign.
When did the Jet2 meme go viral?
Clips began spreading on TikTok in late 2024 and the trend peaked in July 2025, when searches for the phrase reached an all time high on Google Trends.
Is Jet2 a real airline?
Yes. Jet2 is a British airline and Jet2holidays is its package holiday business. The advert in the meme is a genuine commercial, not a parody made for TikTok.
Did Jet2 create the meme on purpose?
There is no evidence the company planned it. The advert had been running for years before the joke started, though Jet2 leaned into it afterwards, including a lip sync contest in April 2025 that offered flight vouchers.
How many videos use the Jet2 sound?
Counts vary by source and by date. Reports published in mid 2025 ranged from roughly 1.2 million to 1.8 million, so the safe answer is well over a million.
Why did the Jet2 sound become controversial?
On 30 July 2025 the White House posted a deportation video set to the song. Jess Glynne, Jet2holidays and Zoë Lister all objected to that use. The everyday holiday fail format was not part of that dispute.
Make a jet2 holiday meme
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