Tuesday, Sept. 1, marked not only the first day of the month that ushers in autumn, but also the beginning of the late 2020s.
Say what? Most of us can be forgiven for not thinking of time in that manner. But Encyclopaedia Britannica kept track for everyone and posted about the milestone on social media. "Today officially marks the beginning of the late 2020s," read the Sept. 1 post on the reference resource site's X account
.Many followers were disturbed by the news. "I needed an extreme content warning on this tweet," read one reply.
Encyclopaedia Britannica's Facebook post announcing the news was prefaced with a "TW," which stands for trigger warning. "TW: This post contains information about the passage of time."
One commenter put it this way:
"Me trying to decipher if the TW is sarcastic or sincere."
"I'm still trying to process 2020," was a sentiment posted among the 1,400-plus Instagram comments on Encyclopaedia Britannica's post on that social network – and it was echoed repeatedly across various social media sites.
"pandemic years don't count!!! you didn't get the memo," said another commenter on Instagram. "No. We didn’t need to post this," said a Facebook commenter.Others tried to put things into perspective: "The early 2020s were a fever dream, the mid 2020s were a hangover, and now we’re just legally required to act like we have it together," wrote one X commenter.
Encyclopaedia Britannica: It's now the late-2020s
Among the thousands of comments, some questioned Encyclopaedia Britannica's time calculations. The resource site broke down the 2020s into three 40-month intervals:
- Early 2020s: Jan. 1, 2020-April 30, 2023
- Mid 2020s: May 1, 2023-Aug. 31, 2026
- Late 2020s: Sept. 1, 2026-Dec. 31, 2029
"Who thinks of 40-month intervals? Most of us would classify early, mid, and late by the year," wrote one commenter.
The decade "should be starting on 1/1/2021 and ending on 12/31/2030," wrote another. "That would still put us in the mid 2020s."
Another resource site, Merriam-Webster Dictionary, shared the encyclopedia's Facebook post on its own page.
That posting also got questions about the 40-month intervals, as well as blowback for the reminder of the passage of time. "WE WERE ALL HAVING A PERFECTLY GOOD DAY," one comment read.
Another commenter just gave up: "Who am I to argue with the 2 smartest books on the planet?"
Mike Snider is a national trending news reporter for USA TODAY. You can follow him on Threads, Bluesky, X and email him at mikegsnider & @mikegsnider.bsky.social & @mikesnider & msnider@usatoday.com.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Encyclopaedia Britannica says time is flying. We're now in the late 2020s
