Washington D.C. Monday May 24, 2021 – The much anticipated coming of CicadaMania2021 is the latest event to be threatened by the generational divide. The once-every-17 year phenomenon could now be the latest victim of cancel culture by young cicadas. The issue began on twitter when a young red-eyed Brood 10 cicada tweeted that “2021 is the year BroodX is taking over”, signaling a power shift from the older more moderate Locusts from the previous uprising 17 years ago.
“We are BroodX. And we demand to be Heard!” said a young cicada with red-eyes as he sat vaping on a cottonwood. “It’s time for the older generation to move aside. Locusts are a thing of the past,” he said raising a wing high in the air.
The older surviving cicadas from 2004 self-identify as Locusts, a term dating back to 1634, when pilgrims in Massachusetts first saw cicadas coming out of the earth and thought them to be what the bible called swarms of locusts. The older cicadas have been at odds with the millennial cicadas this year, who for the first time are rejecting the ancient term Locusts and self-identifing as BroodX.
“These millennials today don’t understand anything. They want to change the world, but they don’t even know how to count,” said an old cicada with a thinning pony tail. “They seriously don’t know that BroodX is Brood 10 written in Roman numerals.”
“We’re not from Rome! And we don’t care about their numerals!” screamed a young BroodX’er with body tattoos and a selfie stick. “We’re Americans and we have our own numbers. In our phones.”
A recent Pew Research Center study found that only 3% of cicadas in the U.S. self-identify as BroodX, with an overwhelming 97% of all cicadas in the U.S. self-identifying as Locusts. 57% of all cicadas said they’d never even heard the term BroodX. Millennial cicadas make up the vast majority of those who self-identify as BroodX. 95% of BroodX’ers have never had a job, or sex, nor have they ever lived on their own outside mother earth.
The generational divide between the cicadas grew wider Sunday when another elder Locust tweeted “Hey BroodX. Some of us old Locusts just can’t believe we get a second chance to have sex. We don’t care what you call us, just call us! #LocustsAreInclusiveWeEatEverything”
BroodX’ers were radically offended by the “the insensitivity of the old out-of-touch Locusts” and issued a hashtag, #BroodXWeHaveBeenWaitingFor17LongYearsToHave OurVoicesHeardAndNowIsOurTime and #BroodX,CuzLocustsAreOld. As of Monday morning over 50 million BroodX cicadas had joined the hashtag movement cancelling Locusts in big cities across the country. No more Locusts in Las Vegas, Lexington or Louisville.
“For you kids, who have never known sex, you haven’t been missing it these slow 17 years,” said a really old cicada with a cigar. “For you it’s been a 17-year nap. But for us veterans who saw a little action in ’04, but then got shot down for 17 very frustrating years…we’ve been waiting for this spring in a way that you cannot understand. So don’t ruin this for your elders! Show a little respect!”
Most researchers are referring to the 2021 cicada explosion as “Brood Ten” rather than using the older term “Locusts”. National Geographic says they decided to use Brood X simply because last time in 2004 it was Brood IX. In 2038 it’ll be Brood XI. Acknowledging the rage of the younger cicadas in 2021, a National Geographic editor who spoke on the condition of anonymity said “Well, Millennials are right that it does LOOK LIKE an x in their Brood name, but scientifically speaking, mathematically speaking, factually speaking… the x is a Roman numeral. It is not about them.”
Theatre of the Absurd 