2016 is finally, finally drawing to a close tomorrow, and at this point we’re still actively questioning the abstract concept of the year as to who else it’s going to take in the next 48 hours. It’s been a largely shitty year, one that felt more like the world was coming to an end than the allegedly doomed 2012 is ever going to be.
So what do a bunch of creative people do to laugh at 2016? Well, turn all its doom and gloom into a horror movie, what else?
The trailer, made by online comedy group Friend Dog Studios, packs every bad thing that happened this year—Trump, Harambe, the celebrity deaths, exploding phones, Brexit, hell, even the mannequin challenge, among others—and amazingly translates all of it into horror tropes. 2016 itself is personified as a serial killer who’s out to get people, because why the hell not?
We’re not sure if the true intention of this video was to satirize the increasingly manic overreactions to all the bad things that happened in 2016, but if it was, then it succeeded. When you think about it, personifying the year as a cruel, ruthless villain who has nothing better to do than inflict stress and punishment on the innocent populace is exactly what we’re doing every time someone famous we love dies or something terrible happens—and the absurdity of this premise and trailer is exactly the same kind of absurdity of everyone’s 2016 reactions.
2016 wasn’t and isn’t an easy year, by all means, but at the end of the day (of the year?) it wasn’t a slasher who wanted to fuck with you just because it could. Maybe it’s a lot easier for us to really go looking for something to pin all our frustrations on, but we also really have to got to remember that blaming the concept of a year and rationalizing whatever intentions it doesn’t actually have for all the bad things that happened is silly AF. It’s like the woman in the trailer exclaimed as Diet Zach Galifianakis was trying to connect all the celebrity deaths: there’s no pattern. Things happen. Life happens.
There’s nothing we can do to stop people dying, but there are many different things we can do to stop the bigger evil *cough*DuterteTrumpMarcosHitlerDiktadorTuta*cough* from happening, and you don’t have to wait for the new year to come to start.
2016 didn’t kill all your favorites and doom the world, nor did it actively teach you any lessons about life and the world. Everything’s all on us, fellow humans. If it felt like a horror movie, then we’re both the heroes and the victims, as well as the villains and the killers. Happy new year, and let’s get started already.