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How do we sum up 2024? It was a year of historic elections, devastating conflict and skyrocketing living costs. No wonder, then, that we seemed to seek respite \u2013 or at least a few moments\u2019 distraction \u2013 from it all by embracing the weirder side of pop culture.<\/p>\n
We were enthralled by tales from a disastrous Willy Wonka-themed immersive event. We pondered how exactly one might \u201chold space\u201d for the lyrics of musical theatre banger \u201cDefying Gravity\u201d from Wicked. And we diverted our attention from the US presidential race by discovering that Take That\u2019s own Gary Barlow has a very, very tall son. (If you hadn\u2019t already guessed, our screen time went through the roof too.)<\/p>\n
The release of Charli XCX\u2019s album\u00a0Brat prompted us to embrace our inner 365 party girl, we collectively fell for Adam Brody in\u00a0Nobody Wants This\u00a0and were alternately impressed and shocked by some truly Machiavellian behaviour on\u00a0The Traitors.\u00a0Oh, and we seriously started to ponder whether we\u2019d have a shot at 15 seconds of viral fame by entering one of the endless succession of celebrity lookalike competitions that seemed to spring up around the globe in the final quarter of the year.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s our countdown of the 15 most chaotic, baffling and downright odd pop cultural moments of the past 12 months\u2026<\/p>\n
15. \u2018It Ends With Us\u2019\u00a0ended with press tour drama<\/p>\n
Offscreen drama: The \u2018It Ends With Us\u2019 press tour gained attention for all the wrong reasons (Getty for Sony Pictures)Not since the circus surrounding the release of 2022\u2019s\u00a0Don\u2019t Worry Darling\u00a0has a film\u2019s press tour been the subject of so much scrutiny.\u00a0It Ends With Us\u00a0is an\u00a0adaptation\u00a0of a\u00a0novel by BookTok sensation Colleen Hoover, which deals with an abusive relationship and stars Blake Lively as the protagonist, Lily Blossom Bloom (you probably won\u2019t be surprised to learn that Lily opens a flower shop over the course of the narrative). Before its release, though, fans noticed that Lively and some of the cast seemed to have unfollowed the film\u2019s director Justin Baldoni, who also plays Lily\u2019s abusive partner Ryle. Then, as the cast started doing the media rounds, Baldoni tended to appear alone, and his co-stars awkwardly shrugged off questions about working with him. The whiff of a rift inevitably prompted social media users to start speculating about a potential feud; Lively then garnered criticism when some fans claimed she wasn\u2019t discussing the film\u2019s weighty emotional topics with enough seriousness. It was, in other words, a bit of a PR disaster, but one that we couldn\u2019t look away from.<\/p>\n
14. Michael J Fox at Glastonbury<\/p>\n
There have been a number of unexpected guests to grace Glastonbury\u2019s Pyramid Stage in recent years, but none so bizarre as this. Towards the end of their polarising fifth headline set at Worthy Farm, \u201cViva la Vida\u201d pop-rockers Coldplay brought on Back to the Future star Michael J Fox, to accompany them on guitar during renditions of \u201cHumankind\u201d and \u201cFix You\u201d. Paying tribute to Fox on stage, Chris Martin explained: \u201cThe main reason why we\u2019re in a band is because of watching Back to the Future.\u201d Left field or not, Fox\u2019s cameo was a heartwarming moment \u2013 an earnest homage to a great performer.<\/p>\n
13. Everybody fell for the \u2018hot rabbi\u2019<\/p>\n
Love interest: Adam Brody with Kristen Bell in \u2018Nobody Wants This\u2019 (Netflix)Back in the mid-Noughties, millennials fell for Adam Brody as\u00a0The OC\u2019s sarcastic, nerdy Seth Cohen. Fast-forward 20 years, and those very same viewers (now several decades older and hopefully a bit wiser) reignited their obsession with Brody when he appeared as progressive rabbi Noah in\u00a0Netflix\u2019s romcom series\u00a0Nobody Wants This, an odd couple story about his fledging relationship with Kristen Bell\u2019s Joanne, a sex podcaster who also happens to be totally agnostic. Just as Andrew Scott was christened \u201chot priest\u201d for his role in\u00a0Fleabag\u00a0a few years back, Brody\u2019s character was branded \u201chot rabbi\u201d (why do we get so obsessed with these religious characters? Discuss…). Safe to say, nearly\u00a0everybody\u00a0wanted a slice of the show\u2019s escapism \u2013 a couple who meet in real life, and seem relatively well adjusted, emotionally speaking? \u2013 and another season is already in the works.<\/p>\n
12. Gary Barlow\u2019s gigantic son<\/p>\n
When Take That singer Gary Barlow shared a prosaic family photograph on Instagram in June to mark Father\u2019s Day, it\u2019s unlikely he would have expected it to go viral. And it didn\u2019t \u2013 until November, when people began sharing it on social media en masse, so moved were they by the height of Barlow\u2019s \u201cmassive son\u201d, Daniel. While it is reported that Daniel is in fact only 6ft 2in (1.88m), he visibly dwarfs Gary (5ft 8in\/1.72m) and the rest of the Barlow family in the image, an apparent loftiness that prompted an avalanche of memes. One widely shared post, for instance, included a photo of Gary being showered in golden confetti, alongside the caption: \u201cGary Barlow standing next to his son eating a croissant.\u201d Families of celebrities should, of course, usually be off limits when it comes to public ridicule, but the flash-in-pan fixation on Barlow Jr was wholly celebratory. Social media simply seemed in awe of him \u2013 a giant among men.<\/p>\n
Gary Barlow and family (Gary Barlow\/Instagram)11. Hawk Tuah<\/p>\n
Seldom has the arc of 21st-century viral fame been painted quite so starkly as with Haliey Welch, the 22-year-old Tennessee woman better known by her catchphrase \u201cHawk Tuah\u201d. Welch uttered the phrase \u2013 a crude sexual onomatopoeia \u2013 during a vox pop interview and the clip propelled her to immediate online fame. Before tuah long, she had launched her own podcast (Talk Tuah), a dating advice app, and a controversial cryptocurrency. It\u2019s now been half a year since the \u201cHawk Tuah\u201d trend began, and that 15 minutes of fame just keeps on going. <\/p>\n
Haliey Welch, originator of the phrase \u2018Hawk Tuah\u2019 (YouTube)10. Celeb lookalike competitions<\/p>\n
On 27 October, an unofficial Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet lookalike contest was staged in a park in New York City. Hundreds of people attended \u2013 including the Wonka star himself \u2013 causing police to show up and issue a dispersal order. The seal, however, had been broken, and a spate of copycat events sprung up across the globe. Lookalikes of Paul Mescal, Harry Styles, Jeremy Allen White and Dev Patel assembled in various public forums to compare likenesses; Glen Powell even offered the winner of his competition the chance to cameo in his forthcoming movie. What made the phenomenon all the more baffling was how few contestants bore anything more than a faint passing resemblance to their supposed doppelgangers. Lookalikes? Hardly!<\/p>\n
9. Harry and Mollie had a\u00a0\u2018Traitors\u2019 showdown<\/p>\n
Twenty-two-year-old Harry played an absolute blinder on the second season of\u00a0The Traitors, managing to lull the \u201cfaithfuls\u201d into a false sense of security with his cheery little brother energy \u2013 then gleefully deciding which of them should be killed off. He seemed to strike up a genuinely solid friendship with fellow Gen-Z contestant Mollie, whose stalwart conviction that her new bestie was on the same side as her reached Shakespearean levels of dramatic irony as the season went on. Finally, during the last ever roundtable, when Mollie had one last chance to see the light and send Harry packing, we saw her start to write the letter H on her board, only to erase it after her pal promised her that he was being honest. Her good faith ensured that Harry landed \u00a395,000 in prize money, and she walked away with nothing. It was solid gold watch-through-your-fingers reality TV (and our hearts broke for Mollie).<\/p>\n
Mollie and Harry on \u2018The Traitors\u2019 (BBC)8. Dua Lipa makes a new friend<\/p>\n
Fox wasn\u2019t the only surprise at Glastonbury 2024 \u2013 at least not in the case of Dua Lipa. The Albanian-British pop star was accosted by a ukulele-strumming musician while strolling around the festival site \u2013 said musician then proceeded to give her a live rendition of a half-sung, half-rapped ditty of his own making (complete, of course, with plenty of uke). The excruciating clip went viral on social media, as did stills of Lipa\u2019s facial reaction \u2013 a look of mortified awkwardness combined with a smile that might be described as generously polite.<\/p>\n
7. \u2018Demure\u2019 became a buzzword<\/p>\n
We probably didn\u2019t need more evidence that everyone is spending far, far too much time scrolling social media (the Oxford English Dictionary\u2019s word of 2024 wasn\u2019t \u201cbrainrot\u201d for nothing) but the speedy rise of the \u201cvery demure\u201d catchphrase provided yet further proof.\u00a0\u00a0In August, TikTok creator Jools Lebron shared a video in which she explained why her work makeup look was \u201cvery demure, very mindful\u201d. The tongue-in-cheek clip, which satirised the stereotypical trappings of femininity, then became a TikTok hit. Soon everyone was borrowing Lebron\u2019s phrase, even brands and big organisations \u2013 Nasa got in on the act when it posted a message on Twitter\/X which read: \u201cYou see how Earth looks in space? It\u2019s very demure, very mindful. Earth looks very cutesy in the solar system.\u201d Some people started reading a little too deeply into the whole thing, claiming it was a corrective to the chaos of \u201cbrat summer\u201d; some adopted it unironically as a sort of trad-wife mantra. Lebron\u2019s viral fame did change her life offline, though, earning her money to finance her gender transition.<\/p>\n
6. Moo Deng mania took hold<\/p>\n
Viral sensation: the adorable pygmy hippo captured our hearts (Getty)We weren\u2019t exactly overwhelmed with reasons to be cheerful this year, so the arrival of\u00a0Moo Deng\u00a0felt like a much-needed ray of sunshine. This very tiny, very shiny pygmy hippo, whose name roughly translates as \u201cbouncy pork\u201d, was born at a Thai zoo in July. She found viral fame when zoo staff uploaded videos of her playful antics \u2013 including, erm, biting her handlers and blowing bubbles of snot \u2013 and her screaming reaction face proved to be a real hit on social media. Soon there were memes, merch and even makeup tutorials promising to recreate her dewy glow.\u00a0Today Show\u00a0host Hoda Kotb put it best when she described the hippo as \u201cthe hottest, hottest new It-girl on the planet. She\u2019s redefining beauty standards. She\u2019s got chubby pink cheeks, a distinct potato shape.\u201d And we wouldn\u2019t have it any other way.<\/p>\n
5. \u2018Holding space\u2019<\/p>\n
The uber-earnest ex-theatre-kid energy of Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo was there throughout the entirety of the Wicked press tour but came to a boil when confronted with one of the most opaque interview questions you\u2019re likely to hear. \u201cI\u2019ve seen, this week, people are taking the lyrics of [Wicked showstopper] \u2018Defying Gravity\u2019 and really holding space with that, and feeling power in that,\u201d journalist Tracey E Gilchrist told the actors. Erivo is seen growing visibly emotional, responding: \u201cI didn\u2019t know that was happening.\u201d Grande reaches out to hold Erivo\u2019s hand but ends up kind of holding onto one of Erivo\u2019s fingers. The whole clip is almost impossible to decipher, and viewers were equal parts amused and flummoxed. <\/p>\n
Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo react to the mysterious notion of \u2018holding space\u2019 (Instagram via @outmagazine)4. Oasis made a long-awaited comeback<\/p>\n
Band reunions aren\u2019t exactly few and far between in our nostalgia-obsessed era but the reunion between Liam and Noel Gallagher, announced in August, did feel genuinely surprising. After all, they\u2019d spent the best part of 30 years reminding us how much they hate one another, and that animosity had only stepped up since Oasis went on hiatus in 2009 (and since Liam got hold of a social media account, allowing him to post photos of his older sibling captioned with the word \u201cpotato\u201d). Did the rumoured \u00a350m payday play a part in thawing the frosty relations between the Gallagher brothers? Who can say! Anyway, news that they\u2019d be getting the band back together for a string of stadium dates in 2025 prompted many of us to cancel our weekend plans to spend a frustrating Saturday railing against Ticketmaster\u2019s dynamic pricing system. Expect parka sales and mod haircuts to spike next summer.<\/p>\n
Liam (left) and Noel Gallagher of Oasis (Simon Emmett)3. \u201cKamala is Brat\u201d<\/p>\n
For millions of pop music fans, 2024 will always be the Year of Brat, such was the zeitgeist-snorting resonance of Charli XCX\u2019s sixth studio album. Part of the genius of Brat is the sheer nebulousness of the term; Charli herself has defined it as evoking \u201ca pack of cigs, a Bic lighter and a strappy white top with no bra\u201d. It was to some bemusement, nevertheless, that Charli tweeted her famous words, shortly after Joe Biden announced he was dropping out of the US presidential election: \u201cKamala IS brat.\u201d Kamala Harris\u2019s team took the compliment and ran with it, altering her social media pages to reflect the brat-green aesthetic of Charli\u2019s chic, stimulant-giddy album, prompting a thousand think pieces and explainers in the process. Even if Harris hadn\u2019t lost the election several months later, the statement would still have been bizarre \u2013 no, Kamala isn\u2019t brat. What are we doing here, exactly?<\/p>\n
2. Kendrick vs Drake<\/p>\n
Kendrick Lamar vs Drake. Depending on your point of view, it\u2019s either two rap giants squaring off \u2013 the hip-hop equivalent of Godzilla taking on Mothra \u2013 or else the real-life manifestation of the \u201chydrogen bomb vs coughing baby\u201d meme. Whatever your stance, the feud between the two best-selling artists undoubtedly kicked up a notch this year, with both Drake and Kendrick releasing multiple diss tracks within a short space of time. The most controversial of these proved to be \u201cNot Like Us\u201d, a track in which Kendrick accuses his rival of being a \u201ccertified pedophile\u201d. (Drake has denied the allegation.) The unrepentantly pugnacious track went on to break chart records and earn five Grammy nominations, also provoking a lawsuit from team Drake. The whole affair has taken rap beefs into uncharted territory \u2013 and fans are absolutely loving it.<\/p>\n
Nemeses: Kendrick Lamar and Drake (Getty)1. The Willy Wonka Experience became the new Fyre Festival<\/p>\n
On 24 February, families headed to a warehouse in an industrial area of Glasgow, hoping to step into a world of pure imagination. They\u2019d paid \u00a335 for a ticket to an immersive experience inspired by Willy Wonka and his chocolate factory (an event, we should note, that wasn\u2019t remotely affiliated with Roald Dahl or the film studio behind\u00a0Wonka). What greeted them was underwhelming to say the least: a few plastic candy cane decorations, a bouncy castle, a handful of actors tasked with reading out a script seemingly generated by AI and a glum looking Oompa Loompa. Police were eventually called to the warehouse after receiving complaints from disgruntled customers. The whole thing was rudimentary enough to make an escape room from an\u00a0Apprentice\u00a0task look like a Punchdrunk theatrical production \u2013 and naturally, social media users lapped up the whole debacle, obsessing over each new eyewitness testimony from visitors and hired performers. It will surely go down in meme history as Britain\u2019s low-budget answer to Fyre Festival.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter for all the latest entertainment news and reviewsSign up to our free IndyArts newsletter Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our\u00a0privacy policy How do we sum up 2024? It was a year […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n