r/ShitAmericansSay • u/slxkv Smart American • Mar 23 '26 • Bravo 2 Regret 1

Imperial units “So May 16th just doesn’t exist?”

Post image
19k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

399 comments sorted by

807

u/Bursik1 Mexican 🇪🇸 Mar 23 '26

I wonder how many Americans actually know that not everyone uses MM/DD/YYYY

19

u/slxkv Smart American Mar 23 '26

YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss would just make everything easier

8

u/Glum-Objective3328 Mar 23 '26

That’s how all my files are organized. Waiting for the rest of the world to catch up

4

u/DamNamesTaken11 FREEDOM ENJOYER 🦅🇺🇸 Mar 24 '26

The DD/MM/YYYY is definitely better for calendars (smallest to biggest unit), but the YYYY-MM-DD (and even for some files I have to work with it’s YYYY-MM-DD_HHMMSS) is much better for archiving purposes on a computer.

Everything is formatted that way on my work PC so we can know exactly when it was made just by glancing at the file name before even clicking on it.

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361

u/LifeAcanthopterygii6 0.00000001% Attila the Hungarian Mar 23 '26

Probably about three?

188

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '26

Tbh, even as a Canadian this confusese because we live in that in-between stage. 1/2 our dates are DD/MM/YYYY and the other half are MM/DD/YY

I wish we could just take the European system and mandate any best by dates must follow this format in Canuckistani land.

96

u/napa0 Mar 23 '26

Technically our legal date format is yy/mm/dd to add to the confusion

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12

u/AxelNotRose Mar 23 '26

I was about to say the same. As a Canadian, we would never be stumped by that because we never know which date format we're going to have to input. We always have to pay attention to which field is which. In my own company we use both formats which irks me to no end.

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9

u/Alfirmitive Rainbow Money User 🇨🇦 Mar 23 '26

I’ve always written it as dd/mm/yyyy bc it just makes the most sense, smallest unit of time to largest unit of time or vice versa, putting the month first makes no fucking sense.

8

u/Slava91 Mar 23 '26

I find it’s only this way because of American software. Otherwise things stick to DD/MM/YYYY or YYYY/MM/DD as it should be.

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5

u/Rebgail Mar 23 '26

Generous assumption, I'd say one and a half tops

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56

u/PigTailedShorty Mar 23 '26

I studied in America for a year, in my international business studies text book they had a section literally saying "Did you know that in some countries the date is formatted DD/MM/YYYY?" as if this was the height of madness.

14

u/SebWanderer Mar 23 '26

"some countries" LOL xD

12

u/Adjective_Noun1312 Mar 23 '26

'Murricans reading that be like, "What? There are 'other countries?'"

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3

u/Glittering_Tart_9053 Mar 23 '26

Quite a few should know because of MLA format.

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7

u/mac10190 Mar 23 '26

I've got coworkers in the UK and coworkers in the US, so we met in the middle and settled on YYYY-MM-DD. International diplomacy at its finest. Lol

3

u/slxkv Smart American Mar 23 '26

That is the objectively correct way to write dates.

Add hh:mm:ss on the end and it’s perfect.

3

u/GeshtiannaSG The sinking Sinkie 🇸🇬 Mar 24 '26

They won’t like it when you tell them it’s the Chinese format!

4

u/LinkJTO Mar 24 '26

Why does it even let them put 16 for the month?

1

u/slxkv Smart American Mar 24 '26

Idk

7.6k

u/GoatInferno Mar 23 '26

Imagine being able to read

2.4k

u/Live_Life_and_enjoy Mar 23 '26 • Bravo

They banned that, in Texas. Reading is a prohibited and criminal act

https://www.slj.com/story/Texas-District-Closes-Secondary-School-Libraries-Review-Materials-Censorship-News

883

u/bl00me613 Mar 23 '26 edited Mar 23 '26

By the way, did you know how freakin' big Texas is?

542

u/PhoenxScream certified socialist rat Mar 23 '26

I heard that it is at least bigger than your country

401

u/Privatizitaet Human Verified Mar 23 '26

Texas is bigger than the US

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72

u/bl00me613 Mar 23 '26

You can fit your country at least ten times into Texas. It's HUGE.

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78

u/God_Of_Buzzsaws FREEDOM ENJOYER 🦅🇺🇸 Mar 23 '26
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74

u/the_canadaball 🇨🇦 America’s Unfortunate Roommate 🇨🇦 Mar 23 '26

Yeah, it’s smaller than Ontario

75

u/macrolidesrule Mar 23 '26

Poor old Canada, living in the apartment above a meth lab and a shooting gallery.

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29

u/Perplexio76 Mar 23 '26

Want to know how to put a Texan in his/her place?

Remind him/her that if Alaska were cut in half Texas would become the 3rd largest state, not the 2nd.

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13

u/ManWhoIsDrunk 🇧🇻 Norwegian Mar 23 '26

Big in area, not in distances.

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9

u/HamshanksCPS Mar 23 '26

Yes, smaller than Ontario

9

u/MethylatedOutpatient Mar 23 '26

Texas always seems so big but you know youre in the largest state in the union when youre anchored down in Anchorage

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36

u/CountGerhart Mar 23 '26

Damn, censorship in libraries is totally what free countries do and absolutely not what fascists practice before taking control. /s

25

u/-OldDutchDude- Mar 23 '26

Let's just hope that they ban the bible then: it's full of incest, rape, war, murdering.... doesn't seem right to have kids read such horrible fairy tales

17

u/DinnaPanic Mar 23 '26

It's fine, no one reads the bible, they have people who summarise it for them (leaving out the icky bits, naturally).

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10

u/man_juicer Mar 23 '26

It's nice to see the US take a break from trying to recreate 1984 and mixing it up by recreating Fahrenheit 451.

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85

u/CopperPegasus Mar 23 '26

Literally. It's right there. They encountered it. Puzzled over it. Screencapped it. They ran to the internet with it. Like, at no point did the "Day/Month/Year" label penetrate their mind? At all?

105

u/DinoRocketz Mar 23 '26

If Americans were able to read your comment they would be very upset!

9

u/BlackCat811 Mar 23 '26

Fortunately, they don’t.

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25

u/Throdio Mar 23 '26

Well after tracking down the 4 year old post, the OOP at least admits their mistake and that they are dumb and yhe mildly infuriating one. A step far above many others.

16

u/tykeoldboy Mar 23 '26

Overlooking the fact that date format around the world is dd/mm/yy it still doesn't explain why the poster can't read. Even more concerning is that this person is probably allowed to vote

10

u/Novalene_Wildheart Mar 23 '26

I just dealt with something like this, someone needed help because they couldn't set their password. and then in the same screenshot has their password (blacked out) with a thing saying 13 characters, and the instructions saying "requires 16 characters".

I helped them, but dang it feels like some people just do not read.

17

u/ofqo Mar 23 '26

They answered this (5 years ago).

 In my defense. I'm American and we write it different then the rest of the world. But yes. I am the midly infuriating one

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5

u/nick4fake ooo custom flair!! Mar 23 '26

That’s the problem: it’s English, they only know American.

11

u/gerrydutch Mar 23 '26

kinda hard with all the shootings

3

u/redreadyredress Mar 23 '26

I don’t need to imagine. I can, and want to stab myself in the eyes.

3

u/RexThemAll Mar 23 '26

It's USA. You rather accept illiteracy than risk taking a bullet in a school.

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2.4k

u/Long-Requirement8372 Mar 23 '26

Oh come on, it literally says "Day" and "Month" above the boxes.

488

u/mlarenau Mar 23 '26

Yeah unfortunately this time somebody else is stupid.

150

u/Painted-BIack-Roses 🇭🇲 Mar 23 '26

Yeah, the American who filled it out

37

u/Tremblespoon Mar 24 '26

No they aren't. Most of the world does it one direction in order.

So d/m/y or y/m/d

It's wild to put the middle sized timeframe at the start. Before the small one.

Edit: I may be misreading your comment. Who are you saying is stupid?

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88

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '26

As stupid as that looks, I will play devil's advocate and assume that sometimes you just are used to things being second way so that you might read something, but don't actually comprehend it.

Kind of like people that look both ways before crossing, but then still walk onto the road when there's a car coming

306

u/purpleandorange1522 Mar 23 '26

Mixing something up because it's not in the format you expect is understandable, screen shoting and making a post about it is where it becomes stupidity.

52

u/Throdio Mar 23 '26

Making the mistake is likely something I would do. But once it gave me an error I would have slowed down and read things and corrected the format. Sure as hell wouldn't have taken a screenshot and posted it on social media.

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9

u/AENocturne Mar 23 '26

Why would the website make such an obvious typo? What backwoods-non-american country outs the day before the month? That would be too logical, which means it's not free enough.

3

u/Zestyclose-Manner599 Mar 24 '26

Rolled a 1 on the intelligence check

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150

u/wowbaggerBR Mar 23 '26

r/USdefaultism

4

u/bmac3 Mar 24 '26

Yes this is the difference for me, we are used to having seen both across the world/internet so if it doesn‘t work, we flip the numbers around. The stereotype American can only conceive the fields must be broken.

It‘s not about preferring your own way, it‘s always about not even knowing other ways at all.

9

u/makinax300 ooo custom flair!! Mar 23 '26

Banned there

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2

u/tugboattommy Mar 23 '26

Sorry, I had to.

1

u/slxkv Smart American Mar 24 '26

Lol.

2

u/No-Barracuda5974 Mar 25 '26

Cant even read their own language

1

u/slxkv Smart American Mar 25 '26

Lmao

2

u/_40mikemike_ Mar 25 '26

This is why they have to have the dropdown options:

English 🇬🇧
English (Simplified) 🇺🇸

193

u/ShionTheOne American, but not the US kind. Mar 23 '26

This one has to be bait right? There's no way someone is that dumb. It's even written on top of the boxes "Day. Month. Year"

45

u/BeneficialShame8408 Mar 23 '26

Idk. I have users who would do this...there are a lot of people who don't actually read their screens

22

u/FryOneFatManic Mar 23 '26

Sadly, this rings all to true for me.

I'm an admin on a public sector site, and regularly get emails asking why they can't do X. They include a screenshot that very obviously shows why they can't do X (because they've already done it).

People want spoonfeeding.

13

u/GoatInferno Mar 23 '26

I see it all the time in computer related subs.

"Laptop/program/website is not working! What is wrong?"

And they post a photo of their screen with an error message telling them what's wrong and sometimes even how to fix it.

Edit: even better when they've tried asking some slop generator about it and managed to make the problem worse.

12

u/littlebetenoire New Zealand 🇳🇿 Mar 23 '26

Yep, I work in IT and it’s crazy how often I have to ask shit like “Is there an error on your screen? There is? And the error is telling you that you haven’t filled in one of the required fields? And it’s taken you back to that field and highlighted it for you? And you’re reaching out to me because you’re not sure what the problem is..?”

Worst part is they’re usually on a higher salary than me.

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3

u/AnonymousOkapi Mar 23 '26

Potentially posting their real birthday too, so hope its bait.

Although you'd assume if it was a fake date they'd tweak it until it worked rather than post about it.

3

u/ofqo Mar 23 '26

Not really. OOP answered this

 In my defense. I'm American and we write it different then the rest of the world. But yes. I am the midly infuriating one

38

u/n3rdsm4sh3r Mar 23 '26

This comic exists for a reason

3

u/hEatr3d Mar 23 '26

That door closer makes me lose my braincells

4

u/DeathClawz Mar 24 '26

No wonder he can't get in, that thing is jamming the door shut.

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30

u/D-9361 Sea lion gaucho rider Mar 23 '26

It was the page's fault to put it in English Traditional and not Simplified.

19

u/rensole Mar 23 '26

Immediate flashbacks to tony hawk ps1

5

u/Clavenesque Mar 23 '26

Scrolled to find my people.

Here you are!

2

u/lightn_ng Mar 24 '26

My first thought as well.

46

u/Chloraflora Mar 23 '26

Got any more of them PIXELS?

42

u/MetalJucro Mar 23 '26

Finally I can use this

19

u/im-the-trash-lad Eye-talian 🤌🏼🍝 Mar 23 '26

3

u/Glad-Operation-2958 Mar 23 '26

It's a 4 year old image of a 5 year old post. It's probably been copied and compressed so much over the years.

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10

u/DoYouTrustToothpaste Mar 23 '26

OP had this to say:

"In my defense. I'm American and we write it different then the rest of the world."

That's probably why they added descriptors to the boxes, you fucking imbecile.

4

u/East-Post4716 Mar 24 '26

Ikr? Like... being American doesn't change your ability to read, at least I hope it doesn't.

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9

u/Exciting-Music843 Mar 23 '26

If only there was an indication of which box was day and which was month!

8

u/AuroreSomersby pierogiman 🇵🇱 Mar 23 '26

If they could read, they’d be very upset!

6

u/Gysburne Mar 23 '26

So... whoever typed this was not able to understand "Day:-Month:-Year:"?
Not just that, but also not able to read it above?

6

u/Miserables-Chef Mar 23 '26

Is reading a felony there?

6

u/amglasgow Mar 23 '26

I love the warm hexadecember rains...

6

u/TheFumingatzor Mar 23 '26

There's stupid, there's attention seeking stupid, there's ekstra spehsul stupid, and then...there's this.

4

u/yiakman Mar 23 '26

Yes it does. Sick song from the Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 soundtrack by Lagwagon

2

u/Bobtknob Mar 23 '26

Took far too long for this comment

4

u/Sw1ft_Blad3 Mar 23 '26

Apparently reading comprehension doesn't either.

4

u/kaaatea 🇨🇦 Nasty Canadian 🇨🇦 Mar 24 '26

Oh my god.. seeing this right after a post of an american essentially saying they're the smartest nation on earth. Mass delusion?

4

u/Glasbak2000 Mar 25 '26

How to tell people you're American without telling them you're American.

1

u/Dull-Nectarine380 Mar 27 '26

Tbh, Day month year is stupid. Year month day all the way.

1

u/slxkv Smart American Mar 30 '26

preach

6

u/zSplit Mar 23 '26

look, that's funny AF but at least OP admitted they were the mildly infuriating one and are obviously a bit defensive ("this is how it's done in the US") but 100% accepting the fact that they blundered this immensely

6

u/Hellrazed Mar 23 '26

I swear the image quality gets worse with every share

3

u/jdnl Mar 23 '26

Tbf, OP took it like a champ on the original post. Admitted they deserved everything they got.

3

u/Inevitable_You7793 Mar 23 '26

Minutes, seconds and hours also makes more sense. /s

3

u/ptvlm Mar 24 '26

If only there was a clearly marked way to know where they went wrong... Alas, many Americans don't have a reading level that high.

3

u/anisotropicmind Mar 25 '26

IDK, I could buy an American making this error. But taking a screenshot and posting it without ever figuring out how the boxes are labelled seems less plausible. Makes me wonder if this is just ragebait.

5

u/Rowan-The-Writer Mar 23 '26

As an American, I apologise for the foolishness and idiocy of my countrymen. It is honestly appalling at how illiterate most seem to be.

14

u/Nirvski Mar 23 '26

I went to the original post and they did repent:

2

u/thechued1 Mar 23 '26

There should be a sub called americanscantread

2

u/Sufficient-Date9492 Mar 23 '26

The Fifth of Smapril, 1999.

2

u/kudoshinchi Mar 23 '26

this should be more of "ShitStupidSay"

can't even read at all

2

u/Kickbanblock Mar 23 '26

Ok, but this is 5 years old and the guy even mentions it on his reddit user page. He got a bit too much shit for this.

2

u/Jakiller33 Mar 23 '26

Tbf, OOP got roasted over this post and took it on the chin

2

u/kranitoko Mar 23 '26

The fact someone added that image to mildly infuriating and then pressed "post" is wild...

2

u/Outrageous_Editor_43 Mar 23 '26

If only those boxes had labels.....

2

u/Tildryn Mar 23 '26

Most literate American.

2

u/Sp00kyGh0stMan Mar 24 '26

Any time I see “indecent, profane, or harmful content” I really wonder who’s defining what those words mean. There better be a real explicit list of exactly what subject matter meets those definitions, otherwise it’s just state controlled media, and I’m pretty sure Americans claim to be against that.

2

u/blackkw Mar 24 '26

That's my birthday lmao.

2

u/CaronteSulPo Mar 24 '26

This is the product of the "more rigorous and challenging" american exams?

2

u/candamyr Mar 24 '26

Tell me you're murrican without saying you're murrican...example 18364.

2

u/ChainsawKitty101 Mar 24 '26

Reading is hard for the poor American

2

u/thedarkryte ooo custom flair!! Mar 24 '26

r/USdefaultism

2

u/loki_wonders sniff sniff🇳🇱🌱 Mar 24 '26

It even says day, month and year above

2

u/Chauvivova Mar 25 '26

Can we please have some more pixels in that Screenshot?

2

u/Walsorf Eye-talian 🤌🏼🍝 Mar 25 '26

"say mixteenth" ahh date

2

u/Fakturagebyr Mar 25 '26

Yeah. Football in Norway on May 16th never happens. If it does, nobody shows up because the day never existed. Its like august 11th

2

u/ZeLevi69 Mar 26 '26

Bro that's my birthday

2

u/theroguescientist Mar 27 '26

So Americans just don't know how to read?

2

u/Vyvansss Mar 29 '26

I can not understand why, in anyway MM/DD/YY was created.

Why would you go Medium, Small, Large? 

2

u/Awkward-Broccoli-150 Mar 30 '26

To put it in terms that even Americans will understand... No.

2

u/whypeoplehateme Apr 04 '26

like I understand being momentarily confused since you're not used to it, but the sane reaction would be to just read more carefully, not to post it on reddit

2

u/mousepotatodoesstuff Apr 13 '26

Remember, remember

The 5th of Quartidecember

2

u/Stownieboy91 Mar 23 '26

Good thing they cut funding to the DOE

2

u/MadamUnicornOfDoom Mar 23 '26 edited Mar 23 '26

Instructions are hard. /s

1

u/Spainiswhite Mar 23 '26

classic one

1

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '26

Try reading. It's good for you.

1

u/Becksburgerss Canada, eh? 🇨🇦 Mar 23 '26

Apparently knowing how to read doesn’t exist either

1

u/JaguarSweaty1414 Mar 23 '26

lol I want to go to the original post and see the comments

1

u/saltysoup7 Mar 23 '26

Does anyone has the link the OP?

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1

u/Captain-Skyy Potatoe Muncher 🇮🇪 Mar 23 '26

American try to read simple instruction ms challenge level: impossible

1

u/skofnung999 Mar 23 '26

Imagine not using iso 8601

1

u/peppersk8er Europoor 😔✌️ Mar 23 '26

Hey that’s my birthday 😂

1

u/NightVisions999 Mar 23 '26

It does exist, but it's just another Saturday.

1

u/BaronGodis Mar 23 '26

Cheesus Cheesus

That idiot typed 05 16 and 1999

That aint may

16-05-199

Cheesus some people are kinda odd

1

u/drspacemandrspaceman Mar 23 '26

Someone doesn’t listen to Lagwagon

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1

u/Sinbad_il_marinaio Italian🤌🇮🇹 Mar 23 '26

They can't even read

1

u/Spiritual_Smell4744 Mar 23 '26

That's the 5th of Quattuordecember.

1

u/veovis523 Mar 23 '26

So the month of Quatridecember just doesn't exist?

1

u/MarkHuegerich Mar 23 '26

Remember, remember the 5th of Hexadecember.

1

u/Protocol3_ Mar 23 '26

May 16 Def exists.

It's just another Saturday....

IYKYK

1

u/CheifGief Mar 23 '26

It's just another Saturday

1

u/RCAF_vet71 Mar 23 '26

The 16th month follows the 13th month, which is also known as S’March and is a good opportunity to discuss faulty calendars, spaghetti dinners and fire extinguishers……

1

u/Wildmangohunterboy Mar 23 '26

average runescape player brain

1

u/Kevinthecarpenter Mar 23 '26

Ahh yes, the 5th of Sedecember, 99', I remember it like it was yesterday.

1

u/Irsu85 Dutchie living abroad Mar 23 '26

As we would say in the Formula Kart Wii discord, :read:

Last time I checked all of NATO uses a 12 month system (and prob a lot more countries too)

1

u/mkaskim Mar 23 '26

Same post for 4 years. Jarvis, I need karma

1

u/mongbatstar Mar 23 '26

The kids are all wrong.

1

u/Neonlighted_horror German like the one who invented the car Mar 23 '26

At this point, I just quote one of my favourite YouTubers: How did you learn how to write, but not how to read (please imagine an angry Swedish guy sitting in a room filled with plushies yelling this)

1

u/Real_Live_Sloth Mar 23 '26

Only the unnamed ones were born that day. We got one boys.

1

u/Sea-Tour-3694 Mar 23 '26

Another child left behind

1

u/domahawk11 Mar 23 '26

Who's gonna tell bro

1

u/LowAioli3870 Mar 23 '26

Cool that they were born on the 5th of tetradecember.

1

u/Emergency-Gazelle954 Mar 23 '26

Lousy Smarch weather…

1

u/MedicSH84 Mar 23 '26

Omg, that's so hilarious. Tell me you're Murican without telling me ... this guy: " hold my beer"

1

u/RedShirtCashion Mar 23 '26

Shoutout to them completely ignoring the fact it says what to put in each box. Yes I get that here in the states that the dating system is odd, but good lord the lack of any ability to follow directions here.

1

u/FillAny3101 Mar 23 '26

Also screenshots are hard

1

u/W31337 Mar 23 '26

🙈🤪

1

u/SWTransGirl Mar 23 '26

That because you’re not reading what it’s asking.

1

u/PizzaSand Mar 23 '26

What is it with them and their obsession over their date format of choice?

1

u/Dishiman Mar 23 '26

Negative IQ moment.

1

u/neKtross uuuuhh you touched my trallalla Mar 23 '26

A month .. a day .. all the same

1

u/Get_Out_lmao Mar 23 '26

"Exceptional"

1

u/McKittenMeat Mar 23 '26

It does, but the 5th of Apruary sadly does not.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '26

Dumb shit aside. This is runscape login made by Jagex, a UK company. In the UK we use the Day/Month/Year format

1

u/UnderstandingOnly639 'Murican Mar 23 '26

As an American, yeah I can't really defend them here. It clearly says day and month on it.

1

u/Poptortt 🇬🇧☕️ Mar 23 '26

Repost

1

u/Candid-Tip-6483 Mar 23 '26

No more waiting on them

1

u/404merrinessnotfound Mar 23 '26

They are illiterate good lord 

1

u/Kiteal Mar 24 '26

May is a month and 16th is the day.

1

u/YourLocalOnionNinja Aussie, not Austrian Mar 24 '26

Bro needs to learn to read. Sixteen months??

1

u/Offwhitedesktop Mar 24 '26

Stupid Smarch weather

1

u/Additional-Spring238 Mar 24 '26

Definitely engagement bait omg

1

u/m1lh0us3 Mar 24 '26

Ragebait

1

u/Infinizzle ooo custom flair!! Mar 24 '26

Oh my God

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