Graphic by Mike LeMieux
Interviews with other years who knew 2016 back in the day
By Rebecca Peterson, Interim Humour Editor
The Other Press recently caught up with some of 2016’s classmates to hear the story of its formative years. After months of dealing with 2016’s shenanigans, from the joke that is the US election, to the loss of many beloved actors and singers (as well as untold amounts of tragic deaths as a result of political unrest and turmoil and wars worldwide), the paper felt it was time to get to the bottom of what makes 2016 tick.
“Well, we all kind of saw it coming, to be honest,” said former classmate 2011, now retired. “See, I got voted ‘Most Likely to Lead an Uprising,’ and good ol’ 2012 was ‘Most Likely to End the World,’ so that was kind of disappointing. But 2016… when I knew 2016, it was the blandest year you could think of. But you know, in a serial killer kind of way. It’s always the quiet ones, right? Hell, in the yearbook, 2001 was just ‘Most Likely to Change the World.’ That’s one of those throwaway titles you give to nice people you don’t know very well but seem to have their crap together. Kinda sucked how that one turned out.”
“2016 was in my Economics class,” said 2008, also retired. “Didn’t seem to get how finances worked, but I mean, neither did I, and look what happened to me! Anyway, it kept asking for the nuclear launch codes, and I was like, ‘’16, this is a mathematics class, what are you talking about?’ It was kind of a shifty year. Still, no one could have predicted this.”
“2016 took an AP course on World Politics and scored an A+,” said 2013. “Can you imagine? A+ in World Politics. If only we’d known, then…”
“No one expected much of 2016, but we all knew it wasn’t gonna be a great year,” said 2015. “I kind of felt bad about passing off the torch to it. If I’d known how things were going to go, I would have skipped right on to 2017, you know?”
Finally, we spoke to 2017, who only had this to say:
“I’m very afraid for what’s to come.”
