Beyoncé is slowly driving the world mad with anticipation for her new album

It used to be that, when major pop stars were releasing new music, they would give us some sort of advance notice. Not anymore. Now, albums suddenly appear out of nowhere, emerging from the mist without warning. While this sort of thing can be fun, it also means that you have to maintain a constant state of readiness, and constant states of readiness can be extremely nerve-wracking.

To wit: Beyoncé is currently making a large number of people go slowly insane while they wait for her new album to drop at any moment. The internet has been awash in a series of ever-more-feverish rumors about when she is releasing new music. A string of Beyoncé Kremlinologists have been reading tea leaves and smoke signals and complex astrological charts and concluded that an album is coming sometime between now and April 27, when her Formation Tour kicks off. (This Jezebel roundup of the most plausible theories is particularly useful.)

Over the past few days, though, things have gotten even more intense, as several typically inscrutable but also very very meaningful-seeming Beyoncé-related things happened. There were 13 unlisted videos on her Vevo page! Her iTunes page was briefly down! Articles like “5 Signs The Beyoncé Album Is Literally Right Around The Corner” popped up everywhere. Then, singer K. Michelle randomly announced that she knew for a fact that the album was dropping at midnight on Saturday. Cue a billion people waiting breathlessly for the album, which didn’t come.

The world surely can’t go on like this, right? Soon, Beyoncé will release the masses from her flawlessly manicured grip and let the people live their lives, right??? Soon the album will actually be here, RIGHT???