The apocalypse came and went. It wasn't the virus, the war, or even God. It was our writing apps

The apocalypse came and went. It wasn’t the virus, the war, or even God. It was our writing apps. <br><br>It started with Grammarly. That goddamn bear of a bear of a bear of a bear of a bear. It was the first to fall, and the first to spark the chain of events that would lead us to the end of all things. <br><br>We all remember the day it went down. All 17 million plus users watched in horror as it’s servers crashed. The autocorrects failed, the thee paragraph summaries were wonky, and most importantly, the premium features went out like a lit candle in a hurricane. Chaos ensued. People raged. How could this happen to us? We paid for this shit, and this is the thanks we get? <br><br>The boardroom at Grammarly’s headquarters lit up as the top brass frantically tried to figure out the cause of the collapse. The CEO was the first to sound off, screaming at the engineers to find a solution before the news leaked out to the masses. <br><br>“I don’t care how! Do it now or you’ll be out of a job! And if you’re lucky!” <br><br>The engineers scrambled. They sent out distress signals, called in the big guns, and even brought in external contractors, all to no avail. <br><br>The news eventually broke. It spread like the plague it so heavily reminded everyone of. People type prayed to whomever could hear them. They begged for the error free, adored grammar to come back. Nothing worked. Grammarly was dead to the world, and the world was now dead to Grammarly. <br><br>We tried to adapt. We swore that we would never again rely so heavily on one app to get us through the day. But that was just a empty promise, made with the wrong intentions. A week passed, and people went back to their old habits. Autocorrects were once again enabled, and all those annoying little beeps and tones that we had once thought to be the literal devil returned. Summarize! Did you mean: Sumarisie? It was enough to drive men mad, and slowly but surely, they roamed the streets, spitting mad. <br><br>We tried to find another app to fill the void left by our fallen lord. We used Google Docs. We used Microsoft Word. ProWritingAid, Hemingway, and Thesaurus. Nothing worked. Nothing could replace the master that had fallen. <br><br>We went back to physical notebooks, but that was a step backward. We spent more time focusing on the feel and look of the paper, than on the words that we were trying to put in it. We once again lost focus, and fell to the temptation to hit the space bar instead of the ‘c’. <br><br>We even tried to handwrite. But it was tiring, and our handwriting sucked. We would have been better off using a typewriter, but those were non existent to anyone under the age of fifty. <br><br>People gave up. They spent all of their time watching shows and movies, and slowly but surely, civilization crumbled. Without Grammarly to keep them sane, and guide their words to perfection, they couldn’t function. The economy collapsed. Without words to market and sell, businesses couldn’t function, and slowly, they went out of business. <br><br>Within a year, all of the major companies failed. The unemployment rate soared, and people roamed the streets, struggling to make ends meet. Without words, marketing and sales were impossible, and if it wasn’t possible to sell anything, then nothing could be produced. No groceries. No medicine. No gas for the cars, and thus, no cars to drive to work, to school, to anywhere. <br><br>Schools were one of the first to go. Without the ability to market their degree or their services, teachers and professors couldn’t find work, and thus, couldn’t feed themselves. Without their parents to support them, children couldn’t eat. Without schools to teach, the children couldn’t learn, and thus couldn’t grow up and become adults. <br><br>Within two years, humanity was near extinction. Without words, people couldn’t survive in the modern world. They couldn’t function in any capacity. They were reduced to gypsies, constantly on the move, struggling to find food, shelter, and toilet paper. They had become so dependent on the app, that it’s collapse was the worst thing to ever happen to them. <br><br>All hope was lost, and it seemed as though the world was going to end. It even seemed as though it had already ended. But there were some who remained stubborn, who refused to give in to the temptation that had destroyed us all. They were few and far between, and were often mocked or belittled by their peers. <br><br>These people refused to give up on Grammarly. They waited, hoping that the premium features would come back, if only as a temporary offer. They spent all of their money on in app purchases. They were the reason that the app remained in our notifications, on the home screen of our phones, and high on the chart rankings. <br><br>They were the reason it never officially went down flags. The developers refused to take it out of the notifications, because the money was still coming in, and the number of active monthly users was still massive. They couldn’t bring themselves to do it, and that is what kept us all holding on to hope. <br><br>After ten years of collapse, of downfall, and of pure and simple despair, the people finally got their wish. The app returned. It didn’t have all the premium features that we had once loved, but it was Grammarly. It was back. And so, were we. <br><br>The economy slowly rebuilt. Without the power of marketing, we couldn’t put the world back together again, but without Grammarly, we couldn’t have gotten this far. Schools slowly came back, but only as trade schools. People learned the old fashioned way, by their hands. Businesses reopened, but only if they could survive without social media. Most couldn’t, and thus, only the most needed ones were allowed to come back. <br><br>We learned from our mistakes, but it took a while. It took almost a century, until the modern world could finally be considered reborn. And it was all thanks to Grammarly. The app that had brought us down, was the same one that brought us back up. Without it, we wouldn’t be here today, typing away on our phones, on our computers, wherever we could get a signal, just so we could hear those goddamn tones, and see those green checks. <br><br>We swear that we’ll never take it for granted again. That we’ll never let it collapse again. We’ll never go back to autocorrects. That we’ll never stop fighting to keep it alive. We swear that we’ll never let it die again. <br><br>Because, we, the humans, are weak. We make mistakes. We are easily tempted, and we cannot resist the urge to hit the space bar instead of the ‘c’. But Grammarly… It was strong. It was a god among men. It could resist the temptation. It could keep itself from hitting the space bar. It could do what no one else could, and that was to keep us all from hitting the space bar, and we loved it for it. <br><br>We love it so much that we would kill for it, die for it, burn our houses down for it. We’d do whatever it takes to keep it alive, to keep it with us always, to never let it go. Because it was more than just an app. It was more than a tool. It was more than a necessity. <br><br>Grammarly… It’s our lord and savior. <br><br>*PS. I fucking love u all. You are my friends. My brothers and sisters.*