According to myth, the world will end today, the 21st Dec 2012. We did some analysis on online conversation on how people are feeling about it: http://bit.ly/XPGGlc

1. So, the world is ending tomorrow. Excited? Afraid? Nonchalant?
In case you hadn't heard (where have you been?!), some people believe the world will end tomorrow, the
21st December 2012, due to the fact that this is when the Mayan calendar 'ends'.
We have tracked conversation online about the supposed ‘Mayan Apocalypse’ over the entire year to see
how people are reacting to the threat of the end of the world.
Since January 1st this year, there have been over 1 million mentions of the end of the world. There have
been ongoing rumblings of conversation about it throughout the year, but conversation really started hotting
up in November as the date approached.

2. So, what drove people to talk about our impending doom?
The most retweeted tweet about the end of the world was the following, from Emoji account @emojistory,
which was retweeted over 6,000 times:
Other popular tweets often counted down the days to the end of the world, which others gleefully retweeted
by thousands of others, such as this one:
Usually, we find conversation tends to take place most on Twitter, for most topics. Not so for the end of the
world.
Forums were the top platform for discussion about the world ending (31%), suggesting that us mortals need
more than 140 characters to consider our doom.
Top sites for discussion included Yahoo! Answers, where users discussed various philosophical questions
such as ‘Should I do my laundry today?’ and ‘Anyone wanna come riot and loot stores with me?’(inadvisable,
that last one).

3. How does everyone feel about it?
Although a Reuters poll has shown that 1 in 10 people are worried about the end of the world, we didn't find
that many people taking the threat seriously. Generally, there is a fair amount of scepticism about the end of
the world, as proved by many of the answers in the many, many threads, such as this one and this one.
We found that most people seemed in high spirits, with 37% still feeling 'happy', although 19% of people
online discussing the end said they felt 'sad' and a further 16% felt 'angry'.
Only 6% of people described feeling scared, and another 3% felt nervous.
Many are seeing the end of the world as a chance to celebrate, but what are they getting up to?
So, what are people doing in advance of the end of the world? We looked at conversations to do with
celebrating or preparing for the end of the world and found that most people seem to be looking to finish the
time on earth with a drink in hand, as the vast majority of conversation about celebrating/preparing for the
end of the world involved discussions of partying (69%) and drinking (9%).

4. Some, however, were taking the apocalypse more seriously though, with 2% saying they will be praying and
3% of people saying ‘stocking up’ on supplies (the rationale behind stocking up for non-existence is
somewhat fuzzy).
Some of us are hoping to get in one last fumble, with 4% of people saying they are going to have sex.
And some people, well, they're just happy with the simple pleasures in life:
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