December holds a lot in store for us: the obvious hustle and bustle of the holidays, events such as the American Country Music Awards, and the premiere film adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit.” On another note, we can also expect our planet Earth to burst into flames on Dec. 21, which is the date that marks the end of the Mayan calendar.
Some of you may roll your eyes at this and think, “What makes this doomsday prediction any different than the others?” Well, for starters, Twinkies, the snack that was built to last through a nuclear war, is being discontinued, and the fact that Notre Dame is ranked #1 in the nation right now is starting to feel like a last joke the Mayans are playing on us. But, before you run out of your job yelling “I quit!” or profess your love to your extremely attractive professor, keep in mind that, like all the other “apocalypses” that have plagued our generation, the millennial human beings will most likely endure this doomsday and come out on top, or at least alive. So sit back, crack open a brew, and cue Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive.”
One of the earlier apocalypses our generation has endured was brought on by the Heaven’s Gate Cult. In 1997, Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettle were able to convince a group of 39 people in California that in order to escape Doomsday, they must board a UFO which would take them to the “Next Level.” Applewhite had put out videos to recruit members, claiming the planet Earth was to be recycled soon and the only way to not be wiped away with it was to join him. This particular doomsday cult had the potential to be turned into a top selling Nintendo 64 game, especially with its close ties to Star Trek
One of the members of the cult, Thomas Nichols, was actually the brother of Nichelle Nichols, who played Uhura in the original Star Trek television series. When authorities found the bodies of the cult members in their rented mansion, they were all wearing T-shirts that read “Heaven’s Gate Away Team.” The Away Team represented a crew in Star Trek that conducted missions in space away from their starship. Applewhite believed that human bodies were just vessels, and if they ended their life in the vessel they were trapped in, then their soul would travel onto the spacecraft that would deliver them to the Next Level.
In true cult going away party form, the members all drank some cocktails of vodka and pineapple with a splash of cyanide and arsenic. Whether they made it to the Next Level or not, we can’t be sure. However, we do know that it has been 14 years since Applewhite had predicted the earth would be wiped away, but it seems like the cosmic recycling truck has missed its stop at Earth, seeing as the majority of the humans or vessels from that generation are still very much alive today.
To elementary school kids today, Y2K might sound like a new boy band to rival One Direction, however, Y2K represented the most hyped up apocalypse of the 90s. Y2K stood for the “Year 2000 bug.” It was a glitch made in our early computer systems where only the last two digits of a year were used. For example, 1997 would be shown as 97. With the new millennium approaching, this created a problem, because the year 2000 would be represented as 00, which could also stand for the 00 in 1900, which would confuse the heck out of our computer systems.
Why our computers only used the last two digits of a year is something I will never understand, but still, this little bug had our entire world up in arms. People feared a loss of electrical power and some even went out and bought wood stoves and emergency heaters. However, when Jan. 1, 2000 came around, no major problems were reported. I continued to beat my younger brother in Super Smash Brothers on Nintendo 64. All was well in the world.
Our most recent apocalypse that we have recovered from was the one Harold Camping predicted to happen on May 21, 2011. Camping, president of Family Radio, a Christian network based in California, had made previous failed predictions of the end of the world in the past. In 1992, Camping published in his book, “1994?,” which predicted that the world would end sometime during September in 1994. He stated that he was 99.9 percent sure of this, however, that 0.01 percent seemed to be critical, because the world did not end.
You would think that might have been the end of Camping or even Family Radio, but it was reported in 2007 that Family Radio’s net assets were approximately $122 million in 2007, and they even received $18.3 million in donations in 2009. The radio station certainly had the means, and Camping, being the president of the station, used those means to further spread his word of the next Doomsday. From 2010 to 2011, more than 3,000 billboards were placed throughout the world warning people of “The End of Times.” Family Radio launched Project Caravan, which sent out five cars to make stops throughout the U.S. spreading the “good message.”
The people that took the message to heart really YOLO’d the months leading up to The Rapture… to the point that they literally had nothing left in the slim chance we woke up on earth on May 21. In an interview with The Christian Post, Adrienne Martinez, 27, explained how she decided not to go to med school after hearing the news, and moved from New York to Orlando with her husband and daughter to read scriptures and hand out Rapture tracts in the streets until Judgment Day. The couple also donated their money to Family Radio. Martinez told NPR, “We budgeted everything so that, on May 21, we won’t have anything left.” Oops? Maybe Camping should have created some sort of insurance plan for his donors in case this Rapture decided not to happen. However, Camping stood by his prediction and said it was the spiritual judgment that had occurred on May 21 and the physical rapture would take place on October 21. But, even when October 21 arrived, everything remained the same, and to my surprise, none of my professors accepted my “late homework due to preparing for rapture” excuse. Whether or not you got burned by the 2011 Rapture, the fact of the matter is that the human race has once again prevailed.
Whether it be a rapture, technological failure, or a Star Trek inspired cult, we humans have proven to be a force to be reckoned with. We’ve even survived the number of the Beast, which took place on June 6, 2006. I may have been a little freaked out for a couple days by the goth kids at my middle school who kept writing 666 all over their notebooks and bathroom stalls for the Beast, but in the end, I made it through and missed my connection with the Devil. When it comes to surviving Doomsday, your method of survival is up to you, though the ones I’ve found most effective usually involve eating, sleeping, and breathing. So all I have left to say pertaining to the 2012 Apocalypse is bring it on Mayans, bring it on.