Fact-checking Owl City’s description of being hugged by 10,000 fireflies

Come with me, if you will, back to 2009: the ninth year of the third millennium and the year Owl City released its hit song “Fireflies.” “Fireflies” eventually reached the No. 1 slot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, in part because it presented the world with a new scientific conundrum: can fireflies hug?

Here’s the lyric that started it: “Cause I'd get a thousand hugs / From ten thousand lightning bugs / As they tried to teach me how to dance.” Yesterday, Owl City’s Adam Young attempted to explain his lyrics, in response to a fan who asked on Twitter, “Does each firefly hug you 1,000 times or do only 1/10th of the bugs give you a hug?”

Young...

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