Owl City Has Finally Answered An Age-Old Question About The Song "Fireflies"

"Does each firefly hug you 1,000 times or do only a tenth of the bugs give you a hug?"

If you switched on the radio in 2009, you probably remember "Fireflies," the debut single by Owl City.

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Eight years on, the song had quite the random meme resurgence this past month.

ma ya MCM would not believe his eyes if 10 million fireflies lit up the world as he fell asleep LMFAOOO

It's gotten pretty out of hand.

When you robbing the bank and then the intercom starts playing fireflies by owl city

You would not believe your eyes IF 10 MILLION FIREFLIES

A friend asked me if there were actually memes of Fireflies by Owl City in 2017. I said, "You would not believe your eyes."

But through it all, one question has persisted: If Owl City gets "1,000 hugs from 10,000 lightning bugs," as the lyrics state, how does that work? Is it 1,000 hugs per lightning bug (of which there are 10,000, mind you), or 1,000 hugs total?

And that was the exact question someone posed to Owl City in late May.

@owlcity In the song "Fireflies" you state "I get a thousand hugs from 10,000 lightning bugs." How do you interpret this statement?

@owlcity Does each firefly hug you 1,000 times or do only 1/10th of the bugs give you a hug?

On Tuesday, we finally got an answer from Owl City (aka singer and instrumentalist Adam Young) himself.

Facebook: owlcity

In a Facebook post that's gone viral, Young said that he was "the recipient of 1,000 hugs from 10,000 lightning bugs for a grand total of 10,000,000 hugs."

"As the lyrics of the song clearly state, the average layperson would not believe their eyes if 10,000,000 fireflies were to illuminate planet Earth, nor would the average person conclude by natural instinct that 10,000 lightning bugs, acting as a collective group, are capable of embracing a human being 1,000 times without difficulty," he said.

"By the same token, a gathering of lightning bugs in such vast numbers form a sort of 'swarm,'" the singer further clarified. "And a swarm can collectively surround a human and deliver a 'hug' that a single firefly, acting according to the dictates of his own conscience, simply cannot."

Young acknowledged that this "may seem inconceivable due to the firefly’s soft-shelled body, which is common among all winged beetles within the Lampyridae insect family," but that he "can testify to the accuracy of this exchange."

"I can furthermore add that while each individual hug took place, each firefly participated in the chemical reaction commonly known as bioluminescence in which the enzymes within the firefly, in the presence of oxygen, magnesium ions and ATP, emitted a chemically produced light or 'glow' because they were happy to be hugging me," Young concluded, along with a reminder to stream the song on Apple Music and Spotify.

People are so relieved to finally have answers.

Glad he cleared this up https://t.co/kED1JYtkEW

i never knew i needed this information but im glad i have it now https://t.co/AzUgnD6SbA

At last, we can all finally sleep at night.

I can finally sleep. https://t.co/htHs7feiJg

We have all been truly blessed this day https://t.co/R37RqMfpBa

So, there you have it. Thanks, Owl City.

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