Can You Solve This Upsettingly Difficult Middle School Puzzle?

Before there was the world wide web, if you couldn't figure out how to solve a puzzle, you just had to live with it. "Is it solvable?" "Am I a blockhead?" We imagine this is how people spoke in the pre-internet days.

So if someone asked you to, say, connect nine dots with only four straight lines, it was up to you and your wits alone. 

You may recognize this puzzle from middle school. Can you solve it today?

Can you connect nine dots with four straight lines? 

Sure you can scroll down to find out if/how you can solve a conundrum that is so simple in nature. Yet over half a million people have searched for the answer on YouTube. 

As Carolina Herrera once said, "Sometimes the simplest things are the most profound."

Indeed. 

OK, let's do this together.

Step one: one line diagonally down toward the right.

Step two: a second line straight across the top.

Step three: a third line going diagonally down toward the left.

Step four: a final line straight down the left side. 

You did it! We did it!

JK — the internet did it, you blockhead.