Written by Caitlynn Woods (Features Writer)
The annual New York Times Square in-person ball drop was canceled for the first time in the last 77 years. Due to Covid-19, the New Years’ tradition of the ball drop was held online and Times Square remained almost completely empty. This would be the first time of an occurrence similar to this since 1942 and 1943when the New Years’ ball drop was canceled because of World War II.
The idea of the ball dropping on New Year’s first originated from the “time balls” that were dropped from poles in ports at 12:00 p.m for the purpose of ships adjusting their times to the correct local time zone. This tradition of dropping the ball on New Years’ has been around for over 100 years, first occurring in 1907; however, unlike the majority of those past years, starting off 2021 was significantly different than any previous year in a very long time.
As everyone knows, because of the pandemic, New Year’s was not celebrated as it usually is. It is against the law to host and attend large gatherings and parties, so not as many were held. Though some people did choose to have their night of fun and get sick or into some legal trouble later. According to Itzen and Natrona County Attorney Eric Nelson, “Quarantine orders, which largely direct people to stay at home, are legally enforceable and punishable by a $100 fine or six months in jail.”
So it really isn’t the best idea to host a New Year’s party during this pandemic, regarding health and legality. Besides, there are plenty of ways to celebrate events safely. Among those would be Zoom/Facetime meetings, small socially distanced, masked gatherings, to celebrate with only the people you stay sheltered in place with, or just not celebrate at all.
All of the people in this country can wait a little bit longer to party, and the rest of the world knows that too. In Sydney, Australia, only a few dozen people showed up to the 12-minute fireworks show that lit up Sydney Harbor. Barely any people showed up to the massive fireworks show behind the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. An 8:00 p.m curfew was imposed to help prevent the spread of coronavirus in France. As well as that, public health officials in Vancouver, Canada, were begging and pleading for people to not gather together.
On a completely different note, there were many individuals on bigger platforms like Tik Tok, who stated that the New York times square ball drop was one minute late, going into 2021. However, I looked into this and the conspiracies that came alongside it. I could not find anywhere that the ball drop for 2021 was late. People were saying that the minute in which the ball was still dropping, the world was switching out of the dimension that 2020 was in; which the dimension had been a paranormally bad one, making 2020 abnormally awful.
All in all, 2021 New Years’ was quite a bit different than it usually would be for a multitude of reasons. Even if this New Years’ day was a little abnormal, being kept inside and all, it will be a kick-off to another crazy year. I am sure that we are all glad to have left many things in 2020 and let’s hope the bad things can be resolved in this fresh new year. It might end up to be just as bizarre as 2020, but welcome 2021.
The Claw 