2016 was a spit in the face to our ancestors, who worked so hard and diligently to build up modern society to where it is today. Here are ten reasons why 2016 is the lowest humanity has ever gone.
10. Vine got shut down.
The popular six-second video-sharing app has come to an end in a controversial decision by owner, Twitter. We’ve seen a lot of great things from Vine, including the rising stardom of Canadian heartthrob Shawn Mendes, (not-so) legendary bottle flips, and teenagers speaking to themselves in a variety of voices, narrating a completely fake story. Although the world (and our Instagram feeds) were enriched by former Disney stars’ attempts at comedy and talentless hot people lip-syncing to horrible songs, Vine is no more. However, there is still hope: Pornhub has offered to buy the video-sharing platform. Its intended purpose is not known.
9. Leonardo DiCaprio won an Oscar finally, and all the related jokes became obsolete.
After years of dedication to his craft, countless movies and all around douchiness, Leonardo DiCaprio finally won his well-deserved Oscar. Although Leo is completely thrilled over his achievement, the internet is in tears over the death of one of the most brilliant jokes. No longer can a regular citizen state that they too, “have as many Oscars as Leonardo DiCaprio.” Pictures of Leo pursing his lips and slowly clapping as his fellow actors beat him in the competition for the golden man, have become irrelevant. The next generation will never live in a world where DiCaprio hasn’t won an Oscar – what a glorious existence.
8. SPOILERS: Characters died.
Damn, sadistic television writers. Back at it again with killing our favourite characters. At the end of Game of Thrones season 6, we finally got the backstory for Hodor, everyone’s favourite giant security guard of House Stark, and it’s depressing. “Hodor” is the slurring of “Hold the door”, derived from a disturbing vision from Hodor’s childhood. He saves Bran and Meera from the Wights, but is sacrificed himself.
Another heartbreaking death was that of Glenn in the Walking Dead. Last season, everyone was relieved to see Glenn alive after an epic cliff-hanger, but this serenity didn’t last long. With the return of Negan, everyone’s fate hung in the balance, and Glenn was brutally murdered. There goes any hope of a happy ending for him and Maggie.
7. In the USA: memes were presidential candidates
Can we all agree that the 2016 Presidential Election was the weirdest in history? Debates were conducted over Twitter, “dabbing” was initiated, and people actually voted for fake presidential candidates. There’s a difference between voting for a third-party candidate and a candidate who isn’t even legally permitted to run – yet Americans still wrote in “Harambe” (the meme continues), and “Deez Nuts”, among others, on their ballots. These people might’ve just crumpled up their ballot and incinerated it – it would’ve had the same value.The worst part? Deez Nuts was probably the best candidate.“Deez Nuts” is actually a 16-year-old boy from Wallingford, Iowa named Brandy C. Olson. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Olson stated that the creation of this practical joke was “half trying to break the two-party system, half frustration with the front runners.”
6. Harambe died.
In May of this year, a little boy crawled into the gorilla enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo. The gorilla closest to him, Harambe, began to drag the boy around. Harambe was then shot, and killed. The video went viral, initially with criticism for how the situation was handled, but it quickly became a meme. The hashtag #RIPHarambe evolved from animal cruelty awareness to photoshopped images of the gorilla, music lyrics changed to feature Harambe, and the profane (“dicks out for Harambe”). Sure, it’s awful a 17-year-old gorilla died as a result of human ignorance, but the meme lasted for months. It’s safe to say we all lost pity for Harambe by September.
5. Everyone tried to dance to Juju on That Beat and it was painful to watch.
Dance trends have always been accurate representations of the horrors of humanity, but nothing, nothing, has been as terrifying and horrendous to watch as white people try to do the infamous Juju on That Beat dance. Combining singular movies from other famous songs from 2016 (including Hotline Bling, Hit the Quan, and the “Running Man” dance), videos of people occasionally succeeding in looking cool but mostly failing spectacularly have invaded social media feeds, making the song one of the most hated earworms amongst those who still have dignity. The trend has died down recently, only to be replaced by “the Mannequin Challenge” song, Black Beatles. Oy vey.
4. Murderous clowns lurked.
They have haunted children’s birthday parties for decades, frightened grown adults, lurked in nightmares, and even occasionally went crazy and stabbed people. But this year, hundreds of clowns roamed the streets, not actually hurting anyone, just freaking the crap out of everyone passing by. In the weeks preceding Halloween, a disturbing trend of adults and annoying teenagers dressed up in ridiculous clown costumes and horrifying masks, with the intent of terrorizing innocent villagers, and making it on to the local news. Beginning in Greensville, South Carolina, the clown craze spread as far as reaching the seemingly touchable rationality of Canada.
3. The iPhone 7 was released, and it’s a disappointment.
After the saddening death of Steve Jobs in 2011, popular technology company Apple entered a downwards spiral, of steadily depressing minor phone improvements and the failure that is the Apple Watch (and not the iWatch – who the hell came up with that?!) they came out with the iPhone 7, quite possibly the worst tech product to come out of California yet. The iPhone 7 is nothing spectacular – it is almost a carbon copy of the 6S, might have a nicer display (this is debatable), and doesn’t even have a headphone jack. This spawned a slew of Titanic-related memes, but the issue still remains – all those ridiculously expensive Beats headphones you bought, are now completely worthless. You know it’s sad when Google came out with a nicer phone than Apple. Steve Jobs did not die for you to pay hundreds of dollars for a phone that doesn’t allow you to listen to music and charge it at the same time, or have to pay even more money for wireless earbuds, that you will undoubtedly lose. Mr. Jobs would be rolling in his grave.
2. People went outside – to catch Pokémon.
We, as humanity, have hit a new low. And it’s not because everyone stays inside to spend hours on their phones and computers, Snapchatting and procrastinating their lives away on tumblr.com, but because they have started to go outside. This seems like an absolutely awful statement at first, until one realizes that the only reason people left the comfort of their couches to pace the streets was to catch Pokémon on their various cellular devices. Originally a trend for third grade boys, grown adults have caved to the pressure and “excitement” of catching pixelated, entirely fictional creatures. Pokémon Go isn’t even a game – you can level up, you can fight people with your Pokémon, but there are no big bosses to fight, no tasks and important achievements to unlock. We have reached the point of no return with our cellular devices, fleeing our homes to only stare at our cellphones again once we’re outside, with more fervor than ever before.
1. Donald Trump was elected President of the United States.
‘Nuff said.
Disclaimer: this article is not meant to be taken seriously, so don’t get all butthurt and be offended and write letters to our editor about how insensitive/wrong/stupid we are. We at the Eddy acknowledge that awful things happened in 2016, and we have the greatest amount of sympathy for those affected in these tragedies, however, we are merely trying to make 2016 a little less horrific than it seemed to be. In the words of one of our fellow journalists, “It wasn’t that bad.”
Written with the much-appreciated and incredibly vital aid of Alyson Young, Christopher Wu, Kaden Hefti, and Joshua Ward.
Photo courtesy of Kaden Hefti.
