On August 7, in the year of Beyoncé and Blue Ivy 2013, a photo was placed on the official royal Instagram of her Bey-Hiveness Beyoncé.
The queen had gotten a haircut.
People gasped, women immediately called their beauticians at the stroke of midnight wanting the cut. Rihanna, Miley Cyrus and Pink all scoffed before fans peppered them with schoolgirl like, "Girl, did you see what Beyoncé did?!" thoughts.
"You're a leader, not a follower!" some hapless fan wrote on Instagram. "She has her own emoji now!" another laughed on Twitter. "The poor, poor weave industry," someone else chimed in. Yes, that poor industry is going to SUFFER because Beyoncé has enough influence to make women all give themselves The Big Chop.
What do we do? We now live in a world where there are children who have never seen Beyoncé with her glorious mane or endless supply of great wigs and lacefront weaves. These children have to understand that Chris Brown is going to retire in two weeks, that Jay Z ditched his hyphen much like he did every other Roc-A-Fella or business thing he just got bored with. Forget post-racial America, we're in post-weave Beyoncé times.
Here's how the next twelve months might wind up if Beyoncé keeps her hair like this. You know, because this is super serious news right here.
August 25: Beyoncé upstages Lady Gaga giving birth to another Lady Gaga at the VMAs by publicly debuting her new 'do. Jay Z cackles and says #newrules while Rihanna plays with her iPhone, adding more half-naked pics to her Instagram account.
August 26: The fan who caught Beyoncé's hair during a concert a few months ago (while she was still performing!) has now simply been dubbed The Fan and added to the Royal BeyHive Proclamation.
September 15: Full-on patents for "Beyoncé Weave" roll in. The hair replaces Indian Remy and Malaysian as the hottest things in the black hair world. Beyoncé tells us her inspiration for cutting her hair was her fans.
September 16: Keri Hilson gets a similar bob cut, and Beyoncé fans come after her viciously.
October 2: Finally ready to put out her new album, Beyoncé gives us the final images of her long hair in the "Bow Down" video, along with the Houston rappers who do whatever they can to make sure they're in the "I Been On" video. Fans weep, consider August 7 as "RIP Baddie Bey Hair Day" and do the "Single Ladies" dance.
November 11: Beyoncé, fully embracing her new look, decides to do the same to her daughter Blue Ivy. The world freaks out again, calls the cut an even bigger sign of the Illuminati rising up against us to take over.
December 31: Bucking all kinds of industry tradition, Beyoncé's new album hits stores just in time for the new year. Her hair is still short, yet the content of the LP is aggressive. Everybody is told to bow down and everything, even Oprah. It goes on to sell 450,000 copies and land at No. 1.