Let me tell you a bedtime story. Are you sitting comfortably?

Once upon a time, people lived in primitive nomadic tribes. An Age of Ice had just happened, and the total population of the human race was something on the order of 10,000 people. Let's not quibble about the exact number. The point is, we were right on the edge of vanishing from this planet.

In order to survive, we came together. Pooled our skills. Created City-States. The average person still lived 30-40 years, and you were expected to be a parent at around 13-15, but hey, at least we had civilization, right?

Having just survived the literal apocalypse that was the Ice Age, it should be no surprise that people fully expected the Gods/God to send another one sooner or later. But you can't have a religion where you believe you are the baddie, and you can't have a religion where you believe the thing you are worshipping just wants to kill you. Okay you CAN but.. it sucks. People knew this.

The Tribe/City/Country over the next hill are full of people who are BAD. They don't have souls like we do. It is therefore objectively CORRECT for us to go over there, kill them, and take all their stuff. They are just NPC's. AmIRight?

But we are the CHOSEN PEOPLE. We are the special ones. Our Gods/God are objectively real. Our 1492 Manifest Destiny is to straight-up conquistador our way across the Earth, crush our enemies, see them driven before us, and hear the lamentations of their women. Also we want their stuff.

So here we are. Gods/God is going to destroy this crummy world again sooner or later. Of course, that means all the Evil People without souls will be destroyed, and we, the CHOSEN ONES, will be elevated to the status of rulers in the New Earth that is to come. We will be the IMPORANT ONES!!!! (...finally...)

But we are the nice sort. Clearly there are more "good" people than "bad" people. So our God in this Bible we wrote will spare 144,000 chosen souls from the horror to come, as revealed in the mushroom-induced fever dream that is the Book of Revelation. In a world where people barely traveled, with a tiny population, this was actually a very positive and optimistic thing to say. Besides, the peasants can't count past 10, unless they use their toes. Are we not merciful!?!?

Fast forward a bit. The population of the Earth is now 8,231,613,070. So that must therefore mean that when the horror wipes out all the Bad People, and assuming my math is right, we can fully expect 8,231,469,070 people to die horribly. Not only that, those are BAD SOULESS PEOPLE. In other words, 99.9% of the humnan race is absolutely, irredeemably, over-the-top fucking evil, to the point that for Good to exist, it has to step in and genocide everybody.

Well that won't do. We supposed to be the nice ones, right?

Enter the Starseeds. A group of people who believe (or say they believe) that they were sent to Earth to help everybody Ascend. Aliens from various advanced worlds that belong to a "Federation of Light". These generous souls agreed to have their memory wiped and incarnate here on Earth as humans to help raise the collective viberation of the planet. In other words, sit in front of their computers and type about how they are raising the collective viberation of the planet.

Of course, they don't believe in those primative religions. After all, Christianity killed a couple of people. Besides, they are far too intelligent to believe such ancient superstitions. This is 2025, dawg! But then again, it cannot be all wrong. Thousands of years worth of belief in something that is totally wrong kinda throws into question a couple of decades of belief into something that is the exact same thing with a different coat of paint. So therefore, it MUST be right. Except it can't be. Except it must. Can't be. Must. Can't be. Must.

Let's compromise. Let's take the 'myths' and say, they were right, but people were just too un-Enlightened to write them down correctly. Jesus was an advanced extraterrestrial alien light being who came to give us some clues. Same with Buddah. The Prophet Muhammad (if they are being generous). Name your Savior and he was certainly sent by the Federation. No love for Zarathustra though. Who? Never heard of him.

But the Starseeds are a relatively small online community. Their subreddit has about 14k people. It's a small tribe... and suddenly 144,000 is looking a lot more generous again. Now let's say that 144,000 souls came to Earth. 144,000 will Ascend when the time comes. Except wait.. that still leaves everybody else on Earth screwed. What about the "mission?". Oh I know, I read the Kybalion once. Let's say that 144,000 is a FREQUENCY. Everything vibrates, right? The Kybalion said that science said so. It's a frequency! But wait. Then we aren't really chosen and important anymore. Oh I know, its our collective Starseed frequency!

TL:DR. I'll get to the point.

144,000 is a Meme from a story that has been appropriated and re-purposed, much as Christianity is just copy/paste Zoroastrianism. It means in any given moment whatever the speaker wants it to mean. Chosen People. Metaphysical Frequency. 44,100 Hz. Whatever floats your boat and makes you feel like the Main Character.

In the end though, this idea has been around for about 3,400 years per Google. How many generations lived and died fully believing they were members of the 144,000?