Is it possible the dinosaurs are now extinct all because of a little miscommunication between the Big Man upstairs and one of his angels?
One TikTok user recently posed this very question in a hilarious, albeit heartbreaking video , that has quickly gone viral online, encouraging everyone to be a bit clearer with instructions in their own lives if they want to avoid similarly disastrous mix-ups.
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In the video, “God”, as played by TikTok user Eliza Petersen, checks in on one of His angels regarding some very important residents on earth.
“Hey angel, did you give the dinosaurs more muscle like I asked?”
This prompts a baffled “what?” from the celestial being, also played by Petersen.
“I told you to make them ‘meatier’,” God explains.
The angel repeats the request back to God, though emphasizes the word “*meteor*” instead.
Uh oh.
” Meatier ,” God replies, likely already sensing a terrible, horrible, world-altering mistake has just been made.
With tears in her eyes, the angel brokenly repeats, “meteor.”
” Meatier ,” God repeats, also sporting some horrified tears.
And that, dear children, is why we don’t get to hang out with dinosaurs today. Please learn from this terrible mistake and speak clearly, always making sure to clarify so the person you’re talking to knows exactly what you want.
It’s been less than a week since the video was posted, but it’s already been viewed over 10.5 million times and has more than 2 million likes at the time of this writing.
As it turns out, Petersen, the woman behind the devastating clip featuring some clever wordplay, was inspired to make the video after hearing a similar joke her dad would tell to people in the ’80s. And she was so passionate about the subject matter that she didn’t even need fake tears.
“I think I’m around dinosaurs enough that I’ve grown this level of appreciation that most people don’t have,” she told Buzzfeed News . “I thought about how it would be so sad to obliterate the dinosaurs, and simply by accident too, so I started to tear up.”
For the last five years, Petersen has been volunteering at the Natural History Museum of Utah’s paleontology department.
She travels to various dig sites in Southern Utah, Nevada, and Wyoming where she’s able to get up close and personal with some real-life dinosaur bones.
Once those bones are brought back to the museum, Petersen is right there ready to help clean them and fit them all together for display, sort of like a “65 million-year-old puzzle.”.
Petersen isn’t a paleontologist herself (She’s actually a paralegal.), but working with the bones has her considering going back to school someday.
Her viral TikTok video has also inspired her to pursue another love of hers: acting .
“Now that this has blown up I’ve remembered how fun it was, being up on stage and performing and loving it,” Petersen said. “The past three days have been a total eye opener for me. If I can decide what to be and go be it, I’ll be it.”
But going viral has done far more than simply provide Petersen with some online fame.
She’s been fighting breast cancer since she was 19, which has not only taken a physical and emotional toll, but also a financial one as well.
“I have to have an MRI, mammogram, biopsy and two ultrasounds every six months to track what’s going on, and that gets really expensive in America,” Petersen shared. “My husband and I just bought a house, and trying to make ends meet every month, to deal with expenses that come every month with being human, it’s piled up really aggressively.”
After her video went viral, Petersen decided to take a chance and shared her story as well as a link to her Cash App in a tweet. The response has been life-changing.
“In the past two days I have been able to pay off the largest lump sum of a hospital bill that’s been glaring at me for four years that,” she told Buzzfeed News . “Unfortunately this isn’t going away any time soon and I recognize that. But I finally feel I’m in a place where I’m a lot safer financially. I’ve never felt so safe and so loved.”
She added, “I literally owe my life to a dinosaur pun and will forever be in debt to this stupid joke from the ’80s.”
