The Cosmology of "The Narrative"

Year of the End of the World

See 1976, 1988, 2000, 2012, 2024

The cycle always begins and ends with The End of The World™. Similar to Y2K causing mass concerns that all systems would shut down as we move into the new millenia, people raise concerns that the modern world will cease to exist because of "reasons". The Mayan Calendar ended in 2012 but we're all still here, leading to the question of "what now?" In 2024, the US held the "End of Democracy As We Know It Election" as the World (read people on The Internet™) is connected to the 24/7 chatrooms and demoncracy is literally on the line. Everyone braces for The End and are disappointed they have to go to work tomorrow. It also looks like The End of The World™ also occurred in 1988, but I was a toddler so I did not care.

And now we start the new cycle of The Narrative once again. I wonder what 2036 will have in store. Probably sentient AI robots wanting voting rights and people screaming about Skynet, but I'm no Nostradamus. This is a joke article. Please laugh.

Year of the Scrambled Egg

See 1977, 1989, 2001, 2013, 2025

The End of The World™ did not happen and those that were disillusioned try to reconcile with the fact they were WRONG. Lives are reevaluated and new hobbies are undertaken. People realize that they were spending too much time worrying about The World™ and not enough time on themselves. They SCRAMBLE to new social groups that "have it figured out" and learn they don't know anything again. Unbeknownst to them, they are once again being groomed, gaslit, or co-opted into believing "The New Narrative". Depending on the cycle, baggy pants or skinny jeans are fashionable again. Black clothing returns to the Goths and a new color scheme for life is announced. Neon or pastel, which ever one is counter culture to "The Old Narrative". Someone claims they are The Reincarnation™ and everyone gives them the side eye. The World™ is once again shook as major events like 9/11 (2001), Edward Snowden (2013), and the live assassination of Charlie Kirk (2025) become serious conversations about how it all went wrong (again).

Maybe you finally listen to a podcast or try to figure out what those streamers on The Internet™ (Twitch, Kick, Rumble, Spotify, or whatever the 2037 equivalents will be) are always going on about. Careful, some of them want you to care about The World™ (but they actually mean The Coin™). Really, you should just GET OFF THE INTERNET but then again how will you know if your bell bottoms / Zubaz pants / JNCO jeans / AI-powered wearables are finally back in style?

Year of the Fruit Bat

See 1978, 1990, 2002, 2014, 2026

Named in honor of Sir Terry Pratchett (GNU Terry Pratchett), the Year of the Fruit Bat™ introduces a new MacGuffin into The World™ as the Figured It Out leaders of the Scrambled Egg begin to realize they can make a couple extra coins thanks to their brand new spotlight. Video kills the Radio Star but that was in The Before Times. The 90s are officially underway and The New Normal starts as the The World™ becomes connected. The dot-com bubble is in full swing in 2002 as everyone NEEDS to host their business on The Internet™ and there are plenty of early adopter investors ready to gamble on this new method of communication. By 2014 social media has destroyed web rings and the only way to communicate is through sites like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Reddit, etc. If you aren't a well known face on these sites or top of the search engines, do you even exist? Better hurry as 2026 is here and Twitch and TikTok are leading the charge creating the next wave of celebrities! Who wants to be the next Mr. Beast? When will Buster Friendly get created? Game shows and Gambling are popular. Maybe Peter Thiel hosts another seminar on some Doomsday, eldritch horror event and Cthulhu dreams of a cookie in R'lyeh.

I wonder which Internet talking heads will use their platform to run for office or become sports entertainers or late night talk show guests...

[EDIT 2026-01-03] Oh, and I guess Venezuelan is a thing now. But the Year just started so let's see where we go from here!

Year of the Magician's Hat

See 1979, 1991, 2003, 2015

Disco is DEAD (1979) and so are the good times! Dungeons and Dragons has created a moral panic and everyone's wearing flannel shirts tied around their waists! The Year of the Magician's Hat means some of the more successful Fruit Bats have gained their soapboxes the find the new moral panic. It's clearly something with polarizing views but at the end of the day, that's everything. Weapons of Mass Destruction are dangled in front of the audience, but no one seems to be able to find them. It's still too early in The Cycle™ for the End of Ze World, but we're always saying its about to happen anyway.

This is the year for maximum virality as Soviet Unions are dismantled (1991), WMDs are never located (2003), people begin to record their lives (1991), and social media makes us fight for Top 8 spaces (2003) and your allegiance to the color of a dress (2015). However, this is also a somber year as drug use is quietly destroying the music scene, the dot-com bubble has popped, and some of the footage getting recorded turns out to be... not great.

Maybe you start to reassess your life's direction at this point, but nothing will manifest until...

Year of the Shiny Penny

See 1980, 1992, 2004, 2016

Boy howdy there's gold in them there hills! The Year of the Magician's Hat left many people wondering how to get that dollar whether its Reagonomics, NAFTA, Google's IPO, Apple's turnaround, chasing Facebook friend counts, and ultimately the birth of the Attention Economy! You better make the Hustle Grind as people are throwing their quarters into Pac-Man arcades (1980) and going outside to catch Pokémon (2016). This is the Year of Doing!

But how that doing gets done can be questionable... Riots on the streets of LA (1992) make it much more difficult to book that Uber ride (2016). "You were sitting home watchin' yo TV while I was participating in some anarchy" as Brad Nowell so eloquently says from your iPod. But don't worry, riots on the streets are the perfect excuses for becoming a Professional Streamer as IRL is scary and dangerous, while video games let you (and chat) escape into a world of pixels! If you aren't a celebrity by this year, sorry kiddo, better luck next cycle.

Year of the Bubble Blower

See 1981, 1993, 2005, 2017

All those Shiny Pennies mean its time to curate our "new" algorithmic echo chambers! Video actually kills the Radio Star this time as MTV has chosen which musicians are IN and which ones can eat dust. Waco is on fire, Tom Cruise is jumping on couches, and slowly, but surely, the world has reached the halfway point in The Cycle™. But this isn't the end of The Cycle either! Because now it's time to build up those walls because its also time to fend off the misinformation / fake news from the other side. Napoleon the Pig calls it rubbish news but that was in Orwell's 1945 Animal Farm, but that was four cycles ago in The Before Times so no one remembers.

Year of the Wishing Well

See 1982, 1994, 2006, 2018

Gambling is popular again, but this time its not scratch offs. Those newly algorithmic echo chambers unfortunately mean that those "really good" ideas may have just been cash grabs. Whether its notorious Atari bomb E.T. (1982), the start of a certain housing bubble (2006), or whatever Ape NFTs were, this year is a sure sign that "the music is about to stop and we are going to be left holding the biggest bag of odorous excrement ever assembled in the history of Capitalism". But don't worry quite yet, have a Tide Pod, sit back, relax, and discuss whether or not OJ did it.

We are in full consumption mode at this point and we've got two whole years before the Year of the Monkey Wrench.

Year of the Cliffhanger

See 1983, 1995, 2007, 2019

The Year of the Monkey Wrench is approaching and we're all sitting on the edge of our seats waiting for the shoe to drop. Mr. Burns is getting shot while Timothy McVeigh is sending care packages to Oklahoma. Cold War paranoia is rampant (1983) as everyone thinks everyone is a spy! You can't quite trust what anyone is saying or not saying, but we do know that The Sopranos' Cut to Black and the first ever picture of a Black Hole HAS to have some type of connection, right? ...right?

I guess we're in the Endgame now.

Year of the Monkey Wrench

See 1984, 1996, 2008, 2020

I was born (1984) and nothing else ever happened in '96, '08, or 2020 to overshadow this year in The Cycle™.

George Orwell warned everyone of my coming.

Also <marquee> is deprecated and I consider that a personal attack.

Year of the Scapegoat

See 1985, 1997, 2009, 2021

... Well whose fault is it that the Macarena/Financial Crisis/COVID-19 dominated our airwaves? Now is The Time™ for Congressional Hearings! And Public Shaming! And Paparazzi! Hide all you like, but this is the time where The Cameras want to know the entire backgrounds of their subject and we sure do enjoy watching it all unfold, don't we? Everyone's an armchair armchair-quarterback quarterback and you clearly don't know as much about this subject matter than I do! Or you prefer to sit back and read online conversations between two people/bots disagreeing with each other. Or just some streamer reacting to the conversations for you.

All the while, there's a few people that are annoyed by the events that transpired during between the Years of the Shiny Penny and the Monkey Wrench because... well they didn't get that dollar. So they invent their own method of currency and somehow those Ape NFTs are still popular? But don't worry, Live Aid is there to give us Music We Can Dance To... as long as there's no Satanic messages hidden in them. South Park also came into being and man was Eric Cartman and Mr. Hanky the Christmas Poo controversial. 4chan is also doing things for the lulz, or the cringe, I don't remember when V for Vendetta and Epic Fail Guy stopped being cool.

Year of the Tinfoil Hat

See 1986, 1998, 2010, 2022

Okay SOMETHING has to be going on! We're trading weapons with Iran for hostages?!?! There's a report on Starrs?!?! Why is Julian Assange dropping things on Wikileaks?!?! Professional Wrestler Edge debuts in WWE and later has a theme song that opens with You Think You Know Me"?!?!

Edge was still in The Brood at that time, but let me cook.

Year of the Camel's Back

See 1987, 1999, 2011, 2023

It's Black Monday (1987), The Matrix and Y2K (1999) are about to overtake The World™, and you are officially at a Fork in the Road between going to see Oppenheimer or Barbie (2023)! The Great Reset™ is upon us once again as the End of The World™ is next year! Everything is a lie so you better Party Like Its 1999!

Year of the End of the World

See 1988, 2000, 2012, 2024, 2036

The cycle repeats anew and The Turtle Moves.

The Cosmology of "The Narrative" is clearly a satire on how world events and cultural phenomena share only tangible connections to each other. But my goodness, COVID made us all Get Online and some people haven't gotten off it yet. Can people stop talking about bingo cards happening every year? The sky is always falling, the rich always get richer, and there's always bread and circuses to keep us distracted. Go watch a movie, read a book, or pick up a hobby y'all. Watching TikToks and Twitch Streamers (or clicks of on those platforms, or on other social media/news aggregator sites like Facebook, YCombinator, Digg, Twitter, Reddit, etc) all day is the real brainrot. And just because you're doing it on LinkedIn doesn't make it okay.

I didn't care about Brangelina and I really don't care about 50's beef with Diddy (but the baby oil memes are kinda funny). Top-level Internet has become a "he said, she said" react content celebrity gossip. Enjoy something without needing a talking head / podcaster / streamer / publication / recommendation engine to tell you how to feel about a person, place, or thing. Outrage culture gets the views, changes targets every day, and has never nor will ever stop. But its eating away at your attention, sanity, aaaaaaaand its making you cringe. The kids are in the Discords anyway.

Long live legacy Internet.

You're suppose to Think and Do, not Speculate and Argue Online. Get Off the Internet.

To my friends in tech, finance, security, media, or journalism, or to random folk that StumbleUpon this blog article, if you think this is silly and want to collaborate on some cynical humor, I'm happy to add more events that occurred during each one of the years and reaffirm my belief system. I'll even share a link to your stuff. I really enjoy McSweeney's. The Year of the Monkey Wrench is off limits.

Dr. Sensei out. o7