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March 20th — World Frog Day, the one global celebration where nobody’s at each other’s throats, no political pundits are accusing each other of election fraud, and no one’s trying to sell you a miracle diet or questionable crypto scheme. Instead, today, we could all take a moment to put aside the usual doomscrolling, take a deep breath, and appreciate the humble, warty, unbothered amphibians that frankly have it all figured out. Frogs. Green, squishy, sometimes poisonous — always charming.
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Let’s be honest: the average news cycle feels like it’s written by someone who lost a bet. International wars, natural disasters, political scandals, insurance companies robbing us all blind — it’s enough to make anyone want to hop into a swamp, vanish beneath a lily pad, and live out their days croaking at the moon in peaceful obscurity. But then, once a year, comes World Frog Day. And for one fleeting 24-hour period, we as a species (should) collectively agree to focus on something else, something simple, something… amphibian.
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Originally created by people who, one assumes, just really, really liked frogs, World Frog Day isn’t really asking for much. It isn’t trying to sell you anything. There are no elaborate rituals or themed sales events. All it wants is for you to think about frogs, maybe look at some pictures of frogs, possibly even learn a frog fact. Did you know frogs can’t keep their eyes open when eating? They literally suck their own eyeballs into their bodies to keep their food from escaping, as if nature said, “What if we made this guy hardcore and mildly unsettling?” That’s the sort of fact that, unlike most headlines, won’t cause you to lose faith in humanity. If anything, it’ll make you question the sanity of evolution, but that’s a far more manageable existential crisis.
Now, the more cynical among you might scoff, “Why do frogs need a day? Don’t we have bigger issues? What about tariffs?” And to that, I say: That’s precisely why we need this. If we don’t take occasional breaks from the soul-grinding parade of bad news, we’ll all turn into twitchy, hollow-eyed husks muttering about polling rates and paper vs plastic straws. Frogs, in their bug-eyed serenity, remind us that not everything needs to be monetized, weaponized, or politicized. Sometimes a frog is just a frog — leaping through life, minding its business, untroubled by inflation or social media.
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Of course, there’s always someone who tries to ruin it by bringing up environmental decline and the terrifying reality that frogs, like many animals, are under threat. And while yes, it’s true that many frog species are on the endangered list, that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy them now. World Frog Day can be both a celebration and a subtle nudge to not destroy every habitable ecosystem on the planet. See? Dual purpose. Look at us, being responsible and whimsical.
So today, let us put aside our usual concerns — the economy can collapse tomorrow, ChatGPT still hasn’t come for your job, and gubernatorial races aren’t going anywhere. For now, let’s give the frogs their moment. Share a frog meme. Watch a video of a toad eating a strawberry. Contemplate the contrarian idea of a frog wearing a tiny hat. In a world teetering on the edge of absurdity, frogs are the comic relief we desperately need. Sometimes, the best way to cope with the madness is to look at something that’s been sitting in a pond for millions of years, blinking slowly, and think, “Yeah, that little guy’s got it all figured out.”
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
Dylan Beauvais spends his days teaching kids the art of LEGO building and his evenings honing headlines as a proud editor at FITSNews.
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