20 Years Ago People Were LOSING THEIR GODDAMN MINDS Thinking The World Was About To End Because Of Y2K

Randomly I’ll think about Y2K and on a night like tonight, with everyone excited to enter the Roaring ’20s, I think it’s particularly hilarious to reminisce on the biggest crock of shit in my entire life: Y2K. Y2K was bigger than BTS, bigger than AIDS, bigger than anything I’ve ever witnessed in my life. The whole 1999 was nothing but mass hysteria and doomsday prepping by every single adult on the planet and boy oh boy did it not deliver. Not even in the slightest.

Now, our website has readers both young and old. And I know you dumb dumb olds remember this far too well. Probably still have the provisions and canned goods squirreled away in your basements from this shit. So for you youngin’s out there let me explain real quick. Y2K was the end of the world. Y2K was the belief that when the clock struck midnight on January 1, 2000, airplanes would fall out of the sky, your refrigerator would grow legs and eat your children, every nuclear missile would launch simultaneously, and humanity as we knew it would cease to exist. This wasn’t like a few people thought this. This wasn’t like the people who believed this were considered crazy. Y2K wasn’t a cult. It was an accepted fact by people both considered smart and idiotic that at midnight we were FUCKED. All because science dweebs and math nerds thought computers – COMPUTERS – wouldn’t be able to count to 2000. Something about that many zeros was like 666 in computer speak and it was curtains for us mere mortals.

I wish I was kidding. This shit really happened. This was like, on the news, daily, at least for all of December. I’m surprised we didn’t cancel Christmas nationwide like Cuba because what’s even the point of joy when the apocalypse is waiting for us on the other side? I’d actually like to interview the people who maxed out their credit cards because they knew it wouldn’t matter due to the impending doom humanity was facing. I’m sure there was a MASSIVE population spike in September of 2000 due to the complete lack of pulling out going on December 31, 1999.

My father, God rest his soul, was a smart man. A brilliant man, even. No idea how my dumbass even shares DNA with someone that bright. And even he had been had by Y2K. We made a big time COSTCO run a few days before NYE that year to load up for the next chapter in human history. Couple of cases of water, lotta canned goods, stuff that would keep for a while, yanno? And by “a while” I mean, I don’t know, a MONTH tops? The worst part was we weren’t the only ones in there doing the same shit. I think he bought two-way radios for when the power went out across the nation in case we had to be separated to make “runs” for more provisions like we were in the fucking WALKING DEAD. And batteries, good Lord the amount of batteries we loaded up on. My father listened to the ball drop in the bathroom. Why? Because he was ready to turn the bath on so that we could fill it up with a few gallons of water we could later bring to a boil so that it would be safe to drink. I truly wish I was making any of this up.

Y2K made the most rational human beings turn into absolute crack pots. Like I think if Y2K didn’t happen the Mayan calendar ending would have been a bigger deal. But since Y2K was the biggest swing and a miss prospect in history none of us could even bother to be frightened. I’ll go so far as to say I’ll never buy into another end of world event ever again because of how big of a dud Y2K was. Because here we are, 20 years later, and no one in the world is worried that 2020 is going to fuck shit up. Mostly because, yanno, we’ve accepted that computers are much smarter than us and can probably handle something as complicated as COUNTING BY ONE. And I’ll never trust you olds with technology ever again, either. Haven’t for the last 20 years, wont for the next 20 years. You had your chance, you blew it, publicly, in front of everyone. You don’t get another chance after Y2K.