Breaking: Mass Cognitive Failure Strikes Nation
In what can only be described as a collective surrender of basic human function, over 20,000 Americans have spent the last 48 hours frantically Googling “are banks open on New Year’s Eve” instead of doing literally anything else that requires an IQ above room temperature.
Let me get this straight: You have a smartphone in your hand—the same device you’re using to ask Google this asinine question—and it somehow never occurred to you to:
- Call your actual bank (you know, the one holding your money?)
- Open your banking app (which you installed specifically for this purpose)
- Look at your bank’s website (where this information has been posted since Thanksgiving)
- Call the branch (revolutionary, I know)
Instead, you chose to join 19,999 other intellectually bankrupt individuals in typing a question into a search engine that could have been answered in 30 seconds by a human being AT YOUR BANK.
“But Dennis, what if I’m anxious about calling?”
Then you have bigger problems than whether Chase is open on December 31st, friend.
Here’s a wild thought: If you’re too paralyzed to dial a phone number but somehow functional enough to manage a bank account, maybe—just maybe—banks being closed for one day isn’t your primary concern.
This is peak American learned helplessness. We’ve outsourced our critical thinking to algorithms and our basic problem-solving skills to strangers on Reddit.
Good grief indeed.
Pro tip for 2025: Try acting like an adult who can solve first-grade level problems without crowdsourcing common sense.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to Google whether water is still wet.