Atlantic Canada — In a year-end survey conducted by The Manatee that asked hundreds of Maritimers about their gripes and grievances surrounding 2016, an overwhelming majority said the worst aspect was people blaming the year itself for everything from celebrity deaths to snowstorms to weight gain.
“I’m not sure how it started — probably on Tumblr — but it became trendy to tweet or post or blog about how much 2016 sucked,” said St. John’s resident Gail Hargrove. “And the Internet just ran with it. Obviously 2016 is not a concept or an entity to be held liable for all the shitty things in the world and your personal life, but everyone got on board. It was pretty annoying.”
“I can’t even count how many of my Facebook friends wrote the exact same statuses all year and thought they were so witty,” said Lunenburg man Jordan Peters. “‘Suck it, 2016,’ or ‘Ugh, could 2016 get any worse?’ or ‘No, 2016, you can’t have David Bowie,’ or ‘Wow, Prince too? I hate you, 2016!’ or ‘If 2016 screws with my income tax return, I will lose it,’ or ‘My car got towed — of course you would, 2016!’ Unoriginal thought after unoriginal thought. That was the worst thing about 2016.”
Monctonian Sheryl McLean indicated her sadness at the loss of several great artists and musicians that occurred this year. “Leonard Cohen hit me especially hard,” she said, “but what hit me harder were the hordes of bandwagon-jumpers who managed to make it about them by posting about his death being 2016’s doing. Thank heaven Cohen’s writing wasn’t as hackneyed and clichéd as that of his sudden fans.”
Every single survey respondent said that although Donald Trump’s rise to power in the U.S. was bad, the legions of people condemning 2016 was somehow worse. “Oh god, I had to get offline for the whole Trump disaster,” said Bridgewater resident Hank Morrison. “When I woke up that morning and saw the stream of almost-identical ‘takes’ on it, I wanted to puke. It was all ‘I have no words’ followed by a lengthy and emotional explanation of how no words can adequately explain how ‘Terrible 2016’ managed to get a racist bigot elected as leader of the free world. What the heck does 2016 have to do with it?!”
“When John Oliver made the joke on his show, I might’ve chuckled for the first minute, but then of course that opened the floodgates for everyone else to ride that joke into the ground,” said Shelby Thornton of Charlottetown. “What, do people think they’re being quirky or something? Everyone is posting the exact same joke over and over. I wouldn’t be surprised if everyone’s New Year’s resolution is to ‘not let 2017 become another 2016.'”
Many Maritimers refused to complete our survey, saying: “If it’s about 2016, I don’t want anything to do with it.”