Suez digger did not like Memes, but they made him work harder

• The small excavation along the Ever Given has spurred dozens of memes from the Suez Canal.
• And the man who drove the excavator did not enjoy the jokes, he told Insider.
• But he said they made him more determined to free the ship so people would say, “He did it.”
• See more stories on Insider’s business page.

The man who drove the shovel on the banks of the Suez Canal, which became an internet sensation for his fight to move the Ever Given cargo ship, did not enjoy the memes about him very much.

But in an interview with Insider, he said the attention helps encourage him to work harder in the six-day battle to move the large cargo ship.

Once the massive cargo ship was launched into the canal on March 23, images of the scene captivated people worldwide. An important route in world trade has been blocked, costing many millions of dollars per hour.

One of the most striking images of the rescue operation showed 28-year-old Abdullah Abdel-Gawad and his excavator.

But one of the last people to become aware of the avalanche of memes that followed was Abdel-Gawad himself.

Abdullah Abdel-Gawad / Facebook

Insider spoke to Abdel-Gawad about his experience in the six days he worked almost constantly to free the ship.

He said he did not notice from inside his excavator that a photographer was taking the now-famous photo that was distributed by the Suez Canal Authority on March 25.

“I really did not pay attention to this,” he said. And then he started seeing the memes on his social media streams.

In Egypt and abroad, people projected their own problems onto the massive ship and used Abdel-Gawad’s small excavator to address the inadequate tools they had.

One meme that Abdel-Gawad mentioned described the Ever Given as ‘my cellulite’ and his excavator ‘a cup of green tea’. Others are now known.

—Lacy Baugher-Milas (@LacyMB) March 29, 2021

But for Abdel-Gawad, it was hard to laugh. To him, the world seemed to be laughing at his work.

“Well, the thing is, they mocked it,” he says, going to describe one meme he saw. “They said, ‘The Suez Canal Authority took action, but sent equipment the size of a grain of rice.’

“I was a little upset,” he added. “But I was really so motivated because I wanted the world to say, ‘He did it.'”

Facebook / Insider

He was so aware of the world’s view of his work that he did not want anyone to know that he was the man in the grave before he was released, he said.

And he was not the only worker who experienced that kind of pressure. Seafarers operating tugs also kept the memes in mind as they made efforts to tow the ship, reports The Washington Post.

“No one could see how much pressure we were experiencing,” Eslam Negm, who was on the Baraka 1 tug, told the newspaper.

And for Abdel-Gawad, even the tugs did not offer the same spectacle as his excavator.

“Nobody really focused on it,” he said of the memes about the situation. “It was just the excavator because of the big size difference, such a small excavator in front of such a huge ship.”

Suez Canal Authority via AP

Another factor that defused the humor for him was how frightening it was to be under the enormous vessel, he said.

According to his estimate, the Ever Given was about 6 feet higher than where it would naturally drift, and his job was to peek at the rock and mud that enveloped it. He said he had a very serious fear that he would destabilize it instead of letting the ship float and drop it on him.

“If you look at the size of the ship and the size of the excavator, it’s absolutely appalling,” he said. Two more workers in excavators, who arrived at the scene a few days ago, were too scared to work directly under the ship, Abdel-Gawad said.

Instead, they worked to transport the excavated material away from where he had piled it. Somehow it became his job, he said.

“They found me working there, and they were like, ‘OK, this guy is next to the water. Nobody’s interfering now,'” he said.

Abdel-Gawad’s only reaction was to kneel and get on with the work, while working about three hours of sleep a night.

“I thought, ‘I can only react by deeds, and that’s how I operate all my life,’ he said. “I do not respond with words. I respond with actions.”