My investment portfolio.
Image: Astrid Stawirz/Getty Images for CBD FOr Life

It was the MarketWatch article heard ’round the world.

In a January post, the finance website quoted a disturbing assertion from investment firm Fidelity: that by the time you’re 35, you should have saved twice your salary. Like, your salary, but doubled. Like, take your salary, and then make it two of those. Fidelity thinks you should have that saved.

It took a while for the internet to get wind of this. (Per Know Your Meme, people started to take note when MarketWatch repromoted the article.) But when it did, Twitter quickly issued its longtime distress call: “lmao.”

Now, people are pushing through their tears and going meme-crazy, sharing all the *other* things you’re supposed to have done before you turn 35. A lot of them are Too Real, but others are completely ludicrous — which works, because who the hell can save twice their salary (again, that’s your salary and then then your salary a second time) before their fourth decade on this cursed Earth?

Can you retire on a healthy stockpile of nihilist memes, though? Asking for a friend.

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