I think that might just be what getting older is like. Horror beyond imagining and wonders beyond our wildest dreams that are actually just more horrors in a wig with a fake nose.
The pandemic was the best years of my life.
The fact that your quality of life was seemingly not really affected by millions of people around the world dying at once kind of says something important about you.
“I’m personally doing great though? Why is everyone so bummed out?”
I had 4 digits in my bank account. Still riding that high today, because i cant afford anything else to get high off of
Weed? Depending where you’re at they’re practically giving it away.
2021 was the good year. The pandemic started to get under control, the first vaccines started rolling out. The second-largest democracy in the world survived a coup attempt, and it seemed like the people responsible would be held to account. The economy started coming back, driven by the generous stimulus packages that world governments had handed straight to the working class, and the subsequent job market boom meant college students were in some cases landing six-figure offers before they even graduated.
For me it started 2016 with Brexit and then Trump.
All I keep thinking recently it’s only been two years for this term so far. Holy cow how is it only been two years? I guess it’s been a little less than 2 years… fuck it’s only been 1.6 years so far. 864 days to go.
2020 was pretty dope for me personally but a lot of people couldn’t handle not being the center of attention for a few months and became completely unhinged.
Since 2016 at least
War, right wing extremism, accelerated climate change, more war, climate fueled disasters, a full blown genocide with the support of world leaders. What a time to be alive.
Early 2020s were pretty good, I thought. Obviously depends where you were as there was some significant collective violence that started up in some places but it wasn’t until 2025 and especially 2026 that things took a turn for me personally…
2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 were all one year. they were all the same year. all of them.
the calendar says 2026 right now but it’s actually functionally acting as the real 2022–whereas the calendar 2022 was a phatasmic mirage of the plague.
I remember when 2016 was the “worst year ever.” And before that, when 2011 was the “worst year ever.” I feel like we should hold off on calling a nadir until we start heading back up.
Just append the words “so far” and you’ll never be wrong!
Having lived since the early 80s, I don’t recall any years prior to 2017 being “the worst year ever.”
Oh man, you don’t? I remember the Mayan calendar 2012 thing, and how at the end of 2011 people were like “maybe it’d be better if the world did end next year.” And then at the end of 2016, I think largely with the run-up to and fallout from the election in the US, people were posting stuff like “hey don’t say 2017 is gonna be your year, we don’t need to tempt fate like that, just be really quiet and make no sudden moves.” We’re around the same age, so I dunno, maybe I was just too online then.
2011 was the first year I remember that kind of doomerism around New Year’s Eve. I feel like I remember 2012-2015 being pretty normal, but then it got super amped up in 2016 (understandably) and we haven’t really had a “normal” (non-doomish) New Year’s since.
Sure, but the Mayan calendar stuff was a fucking joke. The only people who took that seriously were already batshit or the media. Everyone else treated it like a fun distraction. Same thing for Y2K.
It was a joke, but the doomerism about that year was using that joke to say something real about 2011. That’s what I’m saying.
Having lived through 2011, I just don’t recall that doomerism being culturally pervasive at all. A subset of people have been pining for the end times for millennia
Seems like the “first bad year” is based on when in your life you became conscious of the things happening around you.
To be clear, I’m in my 40s. As far as I’m concerned, my years have been way too complex to classify any single one of them as the “worst.” I’m talking about internet reactionary doomerism, which keeps on proclaiming every single year as “the worst year ever,” since 2011 but especially since 2016. It seems like our culture at large should stop making such huge, binary statements like that. Some years can just be bad, or decent, or good. They don’t all have to be (and can’t all actually be) the best or worst; and you probably won’t be able to identify the actual peaks or valleys until you’re able to look back on them with some greater perspective anyway.
How well my life is going strongly correlates with how many edible plants I have growing.
For me, that year was 2001.
The shit happening right now originates mostly from results of the 1980s election.
2001 here too. I’m finding more light in things as I look back, but overall it felt like 9/11 was just the impetus that was needed to start opening the racism and facism flood gates.
Dicks out for Harambe
Could’ve been worse
