As the saying goes, 2020 has been “one for the books.” In the simplest terms, this year has been one long, highly flammable garbage fire that nobody can seem to put out. It’s been a year filled with sadness, anxiety, stress, and anger. Highlighted by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, turmoil in our streets, and the seemingly never-ending presidential election (and the lawsuits and division afterward), this has been a year full of strangeness that few people could have predicted. Because of this, we’ve decided that we’ll just roll the dice on 2021 and do our best to predict what this most likely equally ridiculous year has in store for us. Check back in 2022 to see just how wrong we were.
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2021 Predictions
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Don’t get your hopes up for 2021.
This isn’t so much a prediction as a guarantee. The world won’t automatically become a magical, happy place in 2021. COVID is still here, there’s still major political division, and now The Office is gone from Netflix. Don’t get your hopes up.
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'Doolittle' wins Best Picture at the Oscars.
In a shocking development, the highly hated Doolittle starring Robert Downey, Jr. wins Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Most surprising, it was eligible for last year’s Oscars. It appears the voters were too busy playing Animal Crossing and watching Netflix to care whether any movies were actually released this year.
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Elon Musk earns supervillain status.
The world finally learns what most of us have already known: Elon Musk reveals that he’s a supervillain. In a move that Marvel would be proud of, the billionaire inventor takes over the airways to tell the world that he’s finally ready to take control of everything. Also, he already built a secret lair on the moon that we somehow didn’t notice.
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Dr. Fauci wins Time’s ‘Person of the Year.’
Dr. Anthony Fauci wins Time Magazine’s Person of the Year. But it’s not for the reason you’d expect. He wins it for being the only person to get every single rival vaccine to prove they’re safe for everyone to use. Other doctors tell him this isn’t a great idea, but he does it anyway.
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Joe Biden makes half the country happy.
Regardless of what Uncle Joe does, it’s safe to say half the country will be happy and the other half will be miserable. This is pretty much the safest prediction for 2021. Also, at one point he’ll do something that reminds us of our grandpa.
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Mr. Peanut wins the Super Bowl.
While the Chiefs won the big game again and nobody outside of Kansas City cared, the big stunner was the commercials. Mr. Peanut died again and this time he didn’t come back to life as some kind of creepy baby peanut. He returned as a zombie which is what all of us wanted last year.
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There will be a Tom Brady sports scandal.
2021 is highlighted by a sports scandal involving Tom Brady and artificial intelligence. It’s found that the super old quarterback’s key to longevity isn’t genes at all. He’s cybernetically enhanced having made a deal with some Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to lengthen his career.
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A strange COVID vaccine symptom emerges.
While most of the country receives the vaccination by the end of 2021, a strange symptom begins to occur. It appears everyone who gets the vaccine has a sudden urge to hug, high-five, and pal around with literally everyone they see. Experts explain that it’s really not a good idea, but it doesn’t curb the urge.
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There's a monumental Zoom crash.
Since many of us are still working from home and using Zoom, the site won’t be able to handle the bandwidth and will crash for days at a time, leaving us with nothing but a blank screen to stare at and the sad notion that we’ll have to use one of the other 10 options to communicate with coworkers instead.
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Americans experience a new phobia after working from home too long.
Agoraphobia is usually associated with a fear of leaving the house. A new phobia similar to agoraphobia will be discovered in 2021. Because so many people work from home and don’t get to see anyone besides their immediate family members, the new phobia involves fear of outside people. It’s called zoomaphobia and revolves around the fear of talking to anyone without a computer screen between you and them.
