'Why Do My Eyes Hurt?' Searches Explode After Eclipse

Human stupidity never ceases to amaze…

After weeks of having the words, "Hey, dummy: don't stare at the sun with your naked eyes,' ahead of Monday's solar eclipse, Google searches for people trying to get to the bottom of why their eyes suddenly hurt feel like they stuck forks in them like the guy on the cover of the Scorpions' album Blackout.

If you check on Google Trends, searches for "my eyes hurt" and "why do my eyes hurt" skyrocketed at 3 pm on Monday. That was around the time the eclipse was visible across the United States.

As USA Today points out, if you search by region, the searches follow the path the eclipse took across North America.

I'm fascinated by the idea that there are people who walk among us — a lot of them, apparently — whose eyes started hurting the same day as a rare astronomical phenomenon that requires you to look at the sun if you want to see it, and yet still had to consult Dr. Google.

One pair of blacked-out 3D glasses is all it takes to not burn out your retinas. (Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images)

With All The Warnings And Thousands Of Years Worth Of Humans Living With It, How Could You Not Know Staring At The Sun Is Bad?

Let's take the weeks' worth of warnings out of the equation. You should still be aware that staring at a giant ball of space fire is not good for you. The sun has been around for a while. This shouldn't be news.

It's like how all it took was for one caveman to stick his hand in some fire and grunt the caveman equivalent of, "Hey now; that didn't feel very good," for all of humanity to know that sticking your hand in fire hurts.

READ: CHARLES BARKLEY RIPS ‘LOSERS’ EXCITED FOR THE ECLIPSE

Yet, still, in the year of our Lord 2024, not only did we have to remind people not to stare at the sun, but they didn't listen.

And for what? Solar eclipses are kind of dull. I took a peek at the one in 2017 (with eclipse glasses; I'm dumb, but not that dumb) and was so underwhelmed I thought, "Won't be needing to do this again in seven years."

The payoff is barely worth craning your neck, let alone frying your retinas.

Luckily for ophthalmologists along the path of totality — who are probably popping bottles of champagne as we speak — a lot of people didn't heed the numerous warnings not to stare directly into the sun.

That's shockingly dumb… although to their credit, it's not quite Sunny Hostin dumb.