10 Not-The-Sharpest People Who Just Tweeted About ‘Time Flying Fast’ And Earth Being 2020 Years Old

It’s hard not to feel sentimental at the start of a new year. The changing of the calendar year represents a time to reminisce about what has changed in the last year, what you’ve achieved, lost, and how time has flown, and entering a new decade makes it feel all the more profound. But some people on Twitter are getting emotional over something much bigger than themselves: our beautiful planet, which just turned 2020, if you were napping during science and history lessons for your entire compulsory education.

Check out these birthday wishes that have people desperately asking if this is a joke or a meme. It is, right? Right?

People are wishing the planet a happy 2020th birthday

10 Not-The-Sharpest People Who Just Tweeted About 'Time Flying Fast' And Earth Being 2020 Years Old

Image credits: weiser_thanmost

10 Not-The-Sharpest People Who Just Tweeted About 'Time Flying Fast' And Earth Being 2020 Years Old

Image credits: des_kaiser

10 Not-The-Sharpest People Who Just Tweeted About 'Time Flying Fast' And Earth Being 2020 Years Old

Image credits: pimpjuice_k

10 Not-The-Sharpest People Who Just Tweeted About 'Time Flying Fast' And Earth Being 2020 Years Old

Image credits: rileycantweet

10 Not-The-Sharpest People Who Just Tweeted About 'Time Flying Fast' And Earth Being 2020 Years Old

Image credits: ArthurLK11

10 Not-The-Sharpest People Who Just Tweeted About 'Time Flying Fast' And Earth Being 2020 Years Old

Image credits: lncroyable

10 Not-The-Sharpest People Who Just Tweeted About 'Time Flying Fast' And Earth Being 2020 Years Old

Image credits: dunyuhhh

10 Not-The-Sharpest People Who Just Tweeted About 'Time Flying Fast' And Earth Being 2020 Years Old

Image credits: eMBeaRGaming

10 Not-The-Sharpest People Who Just Tweeted About 'Time Flying Fast' And Earth Being 2020 Years Old

Image credits: jasonator53

10 Not-The-Sharpest People Who Just Tweeted About 'Time Flying Fast' And Earth Being 2020 Years Old

Image credits: Lawi_19

Funnily enough, when we looked up sources on the age of the planet, the top suggested searches were “how old is the earth 2019,” “how old is the earth 2018,” and so on. Apparently, the new year gets people curious. So, if 2020 sounds like a number so large and imposing that it must encapsulate all of our planet’s existence, wait until you hear about 4543000000 (give or take a few hundred million years. When you count that high, it’s easy to be off by an amount of time that’s still longer than mammals have existed.)

The absurdity of supposing that January 1st must be the birthday of all of existence makes you wonder what the significance of the start of a new year actually is. After all, once we figured out how long it takes Earth to complete an orbit, how did we start turning our calendars to a new year not on a solstice or any astronomically significant day, but plain old January 1st?

The answer, the ancient Romans would have told you, is ¯_(ツ)_/¯. It’s the first month on the list. Or, well, it has been since it was added to come before March. February came along later. Then they debated the distribution of days between months for a few hundred years, partially driven by various emperors wanting the months they introduced to be the biggest and best ones. Miraculously, out of this highly civil, scientific process eventually came a calendar that stuck, and we think it’s working pretty well.

Happy arbitrary beginning of the unit that we use to measure journeys around the sun. May this be an educational year for all of us.

Commenters couldn’t quite believe what they were reading

10 Not-The-Sharpest People Who Just Tweeted About 'Time Flying Fast' And Earth Being 2020 Years Old

Lili ended up in Vilnius, Lithuania out of her curiosity for studying languages, and stayed here out of sheer willpower. She loves cats maybe even a little more than the internet average and enjoys cooking videos despite only fantasizing about being able to make anything more complicated than fried rice.

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I'm a Visual Editor at Bored Panda since 2017. I've searched through a multitude of images to create over 2000 diverse posts on a wide range of topics. I love memes, funny, and cute stuff, but I'm also into social issues topics. Despite my background in communication, my heart belongs to visual media, especially photography. When I'm not at my desk, you're likely to find me in the streets with my camera, checking out cool exhibitions, watching a movie at the cinema or just chilling with a coffee in a cozy place

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What do you think ?

POST

Jon S. 4 years ago

I strongly suspect some of the comments about the earth being 2020 years old were jokes. There was someone who genuinely thought the calendar year was the age of the earth a few years ago and it turned into a meme.

51points

Mewton’s Third Paw 4 years ago

Seriously. We go through this every year. People are so gullible and they think that they’re laughing at other gullible people.

27points

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Night Owl 4 years ago (edited)

For some yes, but considering there are people believing Earth is flat ... even something that starts as a joke, a fiction (fictional book, movie, ...), a meme etc. can have consequences if enough people start believing it to be real and they find each other (not so hard to do, considering we have internet)

10points

Nea 4 years ago

The tone i read these in, i suspect people were seriously wishing earth happy birthday.

9points

Martha Meyer 4 years ago

I hope you are right.

5points

Ryo Bakura 4 years ago

Earth: "I WISH I was only 2020. Do you have any idea how good I looked back then? No sign of any humans anywhere, then a few billion years later, and you lot come along, and f*****g ruin me. Thanks a lot, by the way."

28points