Donnella
I have discussed with those I surround myself with on multiple occasions, and 9/10 our conversations will consist or end with fuck COVID, fuck 2020, and to be fair, I agree. Itβs clear that COVID is at the peak of everyoneβs frustrations, followed closely by David Seymour. It seemed like every win we had was followed by another job lost, another bush fire, another protest, and well, worst-case scenario, another death. Beyond this editorial and magazine, there are people out there suffering in silence mentally and physically. Sanitiser stations and masks have become our new normal, and being a person of colour has never been so rewarding yet so uncomfortable. Yep, 2020 is fucked, but all of this did not only occur this year. Itβs been going on for years before my time. Should we be thanking 2020 for bringing climate change, black lives matter and mental health to the forefront? For witnessing the lowest road toll and improving our health and safety standards? Or do we still blame our global issues on the year of 2020?Β
Josh
If I ever have grandchildren, or even children, Iβm going to chew their little ears off about 2020. Itβs been a bigger disgrace than that shit BP did to the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 (wankers). I know weβve all heard it about five hundred times, but we all knew this year was going to go tits up when RnV fucked up the countdown video (letβs bury the hatchet). I wouldnβt at all be surprised if at New Yearβs, Jesus Christ or some other fantasy creature came down and said βRound 2!β. It just feels like a cruel game at this point. Given Harry has written a fair bit of what I wanted to say, 2020 probably wonβt be the worst year of this decade. If we want to have it differently we need a bit of change around here. Could you imagine the leader of your country letting 200,000 die just because they hold their political views higher than actual science? What has the world really come to? 2020 is probably just a culmination of all the previous years humans have been pieces of shit, weβve exhausted our bar tab, and the debt collector is halfway through our front door.Β
Harry
Honestly, what were we expecting 2020 to be? Letβs imagine COVID didnβt happen and that 2020 was the year full of freedom and βsummer vibesβ your drunken mind convinced you it was going to be at midnight in Gisborne. Without the virus, we still have bushfires, rampant inequality, a climate crisis that just doesnβt want to fuck off, and the knowledge that a league of mega-rich pedophiles probably runs the world. Even without the virus, 2020 would have been a 2016-esque year where privileged people had nothing better to do than lie on their bed with a roof over their head and explain to their 400 or so fake, digital friends why β2020 was the worst year ever bro, no capβ on their handheld computer. If anything 2020 is probably just the first in line in whatβs going to be a pretty grizzly decade for anything on the planet that draws breath. Itβs not like 2021 is going to be a magical off-switch where we just revert back to our normal lives. Time is an illusion, and I think Iβll tell this whole decade to fuck off thanks.Β
Luka
It was a year that started with such promise. First year of an engineering degree out of the way, new gig as Nexus Editor, new job, new scholarship, a budding love story. My birthday was on the 22nd of the 2nd in this foul year of our Lord 2020. Everything seemed to be lining up. But – to take the common paraphrase of the poet Robert Burns, who would be having a field day in these strange times – the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. Awry is a polite way to put what has been, by most accounts, an unmitigated catastrophe. Where the year of promise has ended is a white knuckled clutching to the cliffβs edge. The kind of slow motion car wreck one hopes to never witness but we have all been forced to live inside of, eyes clamped shut, screaming into the void. Measuring time in terms of years against a backdrop of chaos unfolding over decades is relatively fruitless, itβs likely our future selves will look back and wish for things to be as sweet as they were this year. When old eyes look back they will see events that shaped the world but when what happened will matter not. So yes, 2020 can go fuck itself.
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