In 2020, toilet paper became an unlikely hot topic. As COVID-19 forced society into lockdown, the temporarily scarce commodity became the brunt of many jokes and an item of incredible value. And while this view of toilet paper only rose to prominence recently, commercials for the product have been around forever, with the Charmin bear commercials probably being the most popular. At first glance, these bears seem to be simple mascots of a company trying to make a profit; however, upon further speculation, it seems they have a whole functioning society that's rather strange.

Reddit user Mykle1984 proposed the theory that Charmin bears live in a world that hides its post-pandemic landscape behind perky tunes and weird new social norms. Their society has passed through an unseen cholera devastation and come out healthy on the other side. Therefore, cleanliness is more than godliness in the faux-bright Charmin society, suggests the Redditor. A clean bear has the right to bear its bare necessities.

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The theory was greeted by other users not with snark — well, a little good-natured snark — but with trivia that supports it. The biggest possible piece of evidence is a bizarre 2014 "Airport Security" commercial that quickly went viral. The infamous Charmin family arrives at the transport hub, and their utterly bare ursine patriarch is pulled aside for a more thorough search. "This always happens," sighs the mother bear, as if the father bear had somehow ended up on an international watch list.

Charmin Bears

However, the TSA isn't racially profiling the big red bear. They're wanding down his bear butt as if it might hold the nuclear codes. Finally, he's declared clean by the officer, and it's time for Dad to dad-joke it, hollering "You got that right!" and then following it up with a two-step jig and an ill-advised "Bam!"

Somehow, Papa Bear is not hustled into a side room for questioning after his joke. It goes to the Reddit theorist's point that whatever disaster plagued this two-ply world, it wasn't bearrorism. Or if it was, it was biological in nature. Not that it couldn't still be explosive in its own way. The Redditor points to a cholera outbreak as the disaster. Cholera is far from a joke in the real world, with its violently diarrhetic and dehydrating effects still a risk in areas without access to proper sanitation and care. However, it is a little bit funnier to safely picture a cherry-red cartoon bear in similar straits.

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The Redditors go on to plumb the depths of the "dirty bomb" tangent. It inescapably brings to mind an image of a once-idyllic world of bears targeted by an engineered strain of the disease. It could be delivered by infected bears whose assault was as simple as making sure they took connecting flights through massive hub airports and not washing their hands. The effect would be disastrous, with the new cholera strain's reproduction number so virulently multiplicative that a possibly unclean bear would be a ticking bomb.

It's pandemic-era comedy at its finest. But surprisingly, Charmin has yet to feature its famous bears washing their hands for twenty-plus seconds. If there was one, it'd be more theory fodder for the fire, but even its lack opens the door to goofily grim conspiracy. One must wash their hands in the Charmin world. It goes unspoken. It must be done, lest the cholera disaster flows unchecked once more.

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The Charmin bears have undergone scrutiny before, and not just for the questions raised by the TSA's obsession with bear buns. They grow dark, with the family's creepy fetish — which seemingly borders on abusive — for making certain their youngest son has the cleanest butt on the block. The Redditor's theory softens this heavy possibility; in the bears' post-pandemic world, being clean enough to go bear-naked is quite the status symbol, and the family's palatial-sized home suggests this family has a social position they have to live up to.

A theory of a cartoon world centered on toilet paper rebuilding after a devastating pandemic is not only funny, but pretty relevant for the times. The Charmin bear universe may be an odd one to ponder, but admittedly, it makes sense.

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