In 2025, it’s no surprise that such a jaw-dropping heist that’s shocked the world is being used as comedic relief on social media. We know how unserious our generation is, but the Louvre Museum heist in Paris, France, showed us how painfully creative people really are and how they can really romanticize anything. That includes the Musée du Louvre being robbed of its crown jewels.
On Oct. 19 at approximately 9:30 a.m., four thieves began their heist at the Louvre, using a ladder truck parked at one of its corners, where eight of the stolen French crown jewels were stored.
These items included the Tiara of Empress Eugénie, Empress Eugénie’s decorative bow, Empress Eugénie’s brooch; Queen Hortense’s sapphire tiara, necklace, and earrings; and parts of Napoleon’s emerald wedding gift set, with an estimated total value of 88 million euros, or $102 million USD.
This is a rather recent robbery compared to its last of a similar kind in 1911, when the infamous theft of the Mona Lisa painting took place. The seriousness of this heist (at least to art history lovers and the French Police) didn’t faze the internet — not one bit.
I hope I’m not the only one impressed by the creativity and intrusive thoughts that were shared on social media post-heist. As mentioned on CBS Mornings and in The New York Times, one of the many humorous viral moments that has circulated the internet and been more of a conversation than the actual heist was a picture captured by a photojournalist during the investigation.
This picture and the curiosity of the man (or should we say detective) have taken the internet by storm because of his ironically stereotypical outfit. One TikTok user received 3.5 million likes on a picture of said detective.
Unfortunately, this was debunked by The New York Times, stating he was simply a passerby, not a real detective helping crack the case. However, he certainly looked like one! One user stated, “That’s the most detectivey detective if I’ve detected one.”
The comment section also humorously shared their thoughts on the heist and expressed how “fun and whimsical” it feels. Another user commented that this is what the world needed in 2025: something “unseriously serious” and that it felt like it was a plot to an amazing, unannounced movie coming out.
Just in time for Halloween, people have been scouring the internet to prepare and get their couples and group costumes ready. Luckily, this heist added a new idea to the creative costume rotation. One TikTok went viral as well, receiving over 400,000 views and 71.2K likes.
It was a pair of friends dressed in reflective highlighter yellow vests and robber masks as their Halloween costume. The comment section in this video didn’t disappoint, and it seems that people are really having a blast being creative with this situation and recreating the outfits of the robbers!
More realistically, we all love to romanticize our lives. What’s a better way to do this than to have a playlist for a specific event and the vibes? Well, the internet took no time in waiting and actually made a Spotify playlist for how it would feel to have robbed the Louvre, featuring “Robbers” by The 1975.
The playlist labeled “the seven minute heist” references how little (and about the estimated) time the robbers took in snatching the crown jewels and successfully got away before police arrived. Oh, and you’re welcome. I’ve linked it in case you felt like romanticizing it too.
Even though our generation is very unserious, this might be what we all needed: a great laugh and discourse on social media of everyone being painfully creative and sharing community.
Even though it’s a true shame that real artifacts and the Napoleonic jewels that are a part of history were snagged from the Louvre, I can’t say that people haven’t bonded over this heist.
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