It all started in Japan in the 1940s, in the immediate aftermath of the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, when images of hibakusha (Japanese survivors of the bomb) and cities reduced to rubble first emerged. Thanks Russia! #ukraine #stopwar #russiastop Che La Luna - Louis Prima

These images offer us a nuclear temperature check of sorts, reflecting the shifting optimism, anxieties and cynicism of the times. A litany of photographs, government films and Hollywood movies over the last 75 years communicates the public’s fears of nuclear war. While the technology to share these images from Ukraine may be more advanced than ever before, the visuals of families in bomb shelters have always brought conflict to our doorsteps by making geopolitics concrete.

Broadcast on an unprecedented scale, these viral visuals of family shelters have worked their way into our collective consciousness, humanizing the headlines and bringing the threat of nuclear destruction directly to our devices. Amassing millions of views, offerings like “ My Typical Day in a Bomb Shelter” and “ What I Buy in a Supermarket During a War” document destroyed cities, bunker cooking and daily life underground, with nuclear threat lurking offscreen. The Russian invasion of Ukraine isn’t the first conflict to unfold on social media, but commentators have been quick to dub it the first “ TikTok War.” Videos by young Ukrainians inside bomb shelters represent some of the most personal glimpses to date of teenage life inside a war zone.

Cold war fallout shelter plans