You clicked the turtle

You clicked the turtle, didn’t you.

Most people don’t even look at the footer, and if they do they glance for a second and then head back up. But not you.

You scrolled down to the bottom, saw the turtle, and you clicked it—and now both of us are here together in this weird nothing space of the internet, staring at each other.

I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, going all the way down to the footer of a site and then clicking all the things, including the turtle, is the kind of thing I’d do. So I understand. But we’re a rare brand of people. As of the last time I checked the numbers, 34,555,496 people have been on Wait But Why, and 6,265 people have clicked the turtle. That’s one in every 5,516. A full Fenway Park holds about 35,000 people. So if every person in Fenway Park visited Wait But Why, only six of them would end up clicking the turtle—and you and I are both one of those six people. I don’t really understand the other 34,994 people in the stadium—the 99.98% of people who don’t click the turtle. Why are they so in control of their lives? Where is their insatiable curiosity for things that definitely don’t matter and will just waste their valuable time?

So that’s nice, but on the other hand, I’m frustrated with you. Because of you—because you decided to click the turtle—here we are in this room. And if you hadn’t clicked the turtle, I could be doing something else right now.

When push comes to shove, I’m glad you clicked the turtle. We are who we are and nobody can change us. Quick hug, and now let’s head back to the normal site.