For many people 2016, which brought the planet Brexit, the Donald Trump election victory, the deaths of Prince, David Bowie and Leonard Cohen and the brief union that was Twiddleswift, has not been the greatest of years.
In fact, the year has become so maligned that Twitter is now awash with scores of posts listing the strange and terrible things that the last 11 months can be compared to.
Among the suggested metaphors for 2016 are a boy being knocked over by an uncooperative wheelie bin, two bald eagles stuck in a drain and the death of Courage, the Thanksgiving turkey pardoned by Barack Obama in 2009.
Here, we collate some of the most poignant:
In this one, a crab rips its own arm off.
And here, a polar bear pats a dog - and then eats it.
In more animal news, two moose were found frozen in a lake, locked in combat.
2017 - you __have a lot to live up to.
