Here's to another decade of crippling anxiety!

Pictured: that time David Bennioff and
 D.B. Weiss won an Emmy for GOT.
Not pictured: that time you or I did.

The internet is first and foremost, a technology dedicated to spreading anxiety and fear. We accept that as the price we pay for online shopping and the ability to share with the world how we would have written the ending to Game Of Thrones. Sure, some of the things it's trying to instill a sense of dread in us about are legitimate. Climate change for example. But then there's this thing floating around social media about how everyone should make sure to write the date as "2020" instead of  just "20," because fraud.

Earlier drafts of Infinity War had
Thanos pulling this scam instead of
that nonsense with the guantlet.

The idea is that if put the date on a financial document or a check or something and you leave it as "1/15/20," someone could come along and add a "19" or "21" or something to the end and change that date. Sure, I guess that's possible, but seriously? I mean, this is 2020, and therefore, the future. And of all the things we could be slowly killing ourselves with stress over, is that high on anyone's list? I mean, first of all, are we hand writing the date anymore? 

Maybe a rent check, I suppose. I mean, who can afford a house? But then what kind of nefarious scheme is your landlord plotting that involves altering a check to make it look like you wrote it some other year? But then that presupposes a landlord not collecting rent for all that time and who even does that?

Ok, fine, Benny from Rent, but that was more about plot
 expediency. Actual landlords usually just want their money.

"Please, such petty schemes are beneath
us. Our scams are far more creative.

-The teller at Wells Fargo

According to Ira Rheingold from National Association of Consumer Advocates, a scammer could use this trick to move a date that you started making payments on a loan to an easier year and then demand more money. But that still feels like kind of a stretch. Like, is there only the one piece of documentation? And who are these people you're borrowing money from in the first place? Sure, banks are basically the worst people in the world, but they usually scam bigger, right? Like, with cross-selling and money laundering?

Look, our health care system is run as a for-profit business, we can't go a week without a mass shooting and the President is claiming that he's immune from prosecution for all crimes including murder. What I'm saying is that there are enough real things to worry about, so let us make a pact not to lose our minds over anything less than our crumbling democracy or the rising sea levels. Deal?

In contrast to the Roaring 20's, I predict that we'll look
back on this decade as the Crippling Anxiety 20's.