Name: 365 buttons.
Age: New. This is a 2026 thing.
What kind of a thing? Is it like the song 99 Red Balloons by the German band Nena from the 1980s? Not really (though it can be if you want it to). It’s kind of a philosophy of life.
Sounds intriguing, if a little confusing – can you explain please? Hey, it only has to make sense to me for me to do it and I don’t feel like explaining it to anyone else.
Oh, well, that complicates things. The way Pass notes works is a Q&A format: I ask questions, you explain so the reader is enlightened. Sorry, there probably should have been quotation marks on my last answer. That is sort of the 365 buttons philosophy: “Hey, it only has to make sense to me for me to do it and I don’t feel like explaining it to anyone else,” said a TikTok user named Tamara after she accidentally created a new meme.
So where do all those buttons come in? Ah, for that we have to go back to the very beginning, last year in fact …
No! Last year is so last year. I’m all about looking forward. It came at the very end of last year, and was all about looking forward to this one …
Go on then. So Tamara posted under the handle @flylikeadove on someone else’s video about rebranding for the new year.
And what did Tamara, AKA @flylikeadove, have to say? “I’m getting 365 buttons, one for each day, because I want to do more stuff and I’m scared of time, so I want to be more conscious of it.”
That seems to be about marking time with something physical in order to be more productive. What kinds of buttons, though? The fastening ones, or badges? Would chocolate buttons work? These are the sort of questions other TikTokers asked Tamara. To which she replied with her now famous quote that it only had to “make sense” to her.
Yeah, you already mentioned that. And it caught the imagination of social media? And lo, unto TikTok, a meme is born. Possibly the first of 2026.
Just so we’re clear, 365 buttons isn’t so much about buttons, or even time, really – more about just doing your own thing? That’s how I’m seeing it, but TikTok has gone mad with other users’ interpretations and explanations – some videos have more than 1m views.
And in doing so, the explainers are sort of doing what Tamara says you don’t have to! Exactly. And that’s probably why she seems to have wisely dissociated herself from the whole thing.
Do say: “Still, it’s better than six-seven.”
Don’t say: “Yeah, but it’s still a lot of meaningless nonsense.”
