Happy New Year, bitches! Or alternatively, salutations on this day of the rapture. Allow me to explain: today is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. It falls on a different date in the Gregorian calendar each year because the Gregorian calendar is solar, while the Jewish one is lunisolar. (And the Chinese is lunar, rounding out the trifecta of New Years I observed as a Jewish kid growing up in San Francisco. Shanah Tovah Gong Hei Lang Syne.) But today is also special because Jesus visited a South African pastor in a dream to give him the heads-up that the rapture will be taking place today and tomorrow. Pastor Joshua Mhlakela dutifully spread the good word that “The rapture is upon us, whether you are ready or not,” and social media took the baton from there by spawning the hashtag #RaptureTok. So as faithful TikTokers contemplate their (potential) upcoming ascent to heaven, they have a fervent request for Jesus: please let us take our dogs!
If you’re unfamiliar, the rapture in Christianity is the belief that good Christ-loving folks of Earth — both living and dead — will ascend to heaven with Jesus Christ.
People have taken this belief and run with it on social media, which has started the trend of #RaptureTok.
In the hundreds of videos with that tag on TikTok, you’ll discover everything from rapture tips to people wondering if they can take their dogs with them if they’re the chosen ones.
One woman’s video with over 200,000 views is making light of it all by referencing another jokester’s videos on the topic. “He’s a riot, he’s making this whole journey so fun.”
She went on to explain that in one of his videos, he mentions how there’s an angel assigned to each person when they get raptured. “He’s like, ‘I wonder if our pets get raptured too.’ He goes, ‘Could you imagine the angel that’s assigned the one little Chihuahua? They’re going up 1,000 miles per hour,’” she said, giggling.
…“I ask God all the time to please take my dogs when we’re raptured,” someone wrote in the comment section of that video.
“I have prayed for my fur babies to be raptured with me,” agreed someone else.
“They replied, ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved — you and your household.’ My household includes my fur babies,” a hopeful commenter wrote, quoting scripture.
While there are plenty of serious videos on the topic, of course, there are many skeptics making light of the situation, dogs aside.
One video posted under #RaptureTok showed two people hysterically laughing with overlay text that read: “I am so petty I am going to lay out a couple of outfits in my driveway on sept 24th so when my neighbor walks his dog he will think me and my dog made it to heaven for the rapture and they didn’t.”
I love how all these people are worried about whether their fur babies can go with them, as if it wasn’t the reverse that is the case: that our pets are assured entrance while we humans ought to be praying we get to tag along with them! Don’t these TikTokers know the holy proverb, All dogs go to heaven?? And of course there’s the argument that heaven is wherever your dog is. Honestly, though, and despite this not being my religion, I’m confident in saying that these 48 hours are not the rapture. Not after learning that the tragic half of the rapture decrees that “those left behind will endure seven years of suffering, war and devastation led by the Antichrist.” Is that not proof positive the event already took place, and we’re the left behinds?
Whether you’re reading this edition of Celebitchy from heaven, hell, or whatever it is that constitutes our current plane of existence, I say Merry September 23, ya filthy animals!
(@catladies4america)
Photos credit: Jozef Fehér, Pixabay, musicFactory lehmannsound, Laurie Gouley, Matheus Bertelli on Pexels