Social media loses it over Elmo’s unassuming question

Elmo asked a simple enough question and the internet couldn’t handle it.

The Sesame Street favourite – or his human handlers – posted a simple question to X, formerly known as Twitter.

And judging by the responses he received, 2024 is set to be quite the wild ride.

“Elmo is just checking in! How is everybody doing?” the furry, red puppet asked, seemingly innocently.

The replies, however, were definitely not G-rated and suggested Elmo’s fans are far from okay, with his followers unleashing a series of complaints about their lives, each more dire than the last.

“Elmo each day the abyss we stare into grows a unique horror,” replied American writer Hanif Abdurraqib.

“One that was previously unfathomable in nature. our inevitable doom which once accelerated in years, or months, now accelerates in hours, even minutes. however I did have a good grapefruit earlier, thank you for asking.”

And that was just one of thousands of similar replies, which included depressing gems such as “Elmo do you even have a mortgage”, “Elmo I just got laid off” and “The world is burning around us, Elmo.”

The thread, which at time of publication was approaching 59 million views, seemed to act as a release valve of sorts for people’s feelings, as summed up by one wag who wrote, “I did not have us all trauma dumping on elmo (sic) on my bingo card”.