It’s no surprise that since the pandemic in 2020, the years following have been hazy and strange. They’ve gone too quickly, yet too slowly, and so much is happening that no one can keep track. Regardless of the reason, it’s no surprise that this year was of the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it variety.
So, to kiss 2023 goodbye, I’ve compiled a list of major pop culture moments that happened this year based on virality and memorability…
- January: Beyonce’s Dubai Riff and Red Doja Cat
We opened up the new year with Beyoncé serenading us with her “Drunk in Love” riff in Dubai. This moment became instantly viral because she hadn’t performed live in five years. The wildest part about all of this was that the public wasn’t supposed to be privy to this performance at all; it was a private event that barred any recordings of the singer from the audience. This didn’t stop attendees from whipping out their phones and sharing footage of her vocals, so we truly have them to thank.
Following this, the award for the first wild celebrity fashion choice of the year goes to Doja Cat. During Paris Fashion Week, the singer stunned bystanders with her red gem encrusted skin. It wasn’t just a small section, however; it was every visible surface of her skin. It was absolutely absurd in a way that can only be described as looking “camp” right in the eye. Despite all of Doja’s controversies following this event, one can’t deny that the moment was iconic.
- February: Rihanna Performs at the Super Bowl and Angela Bassett Does the Thing
Famous singer Rihanna had been missing in action from the music scene since the release of her last album, Anti, in 2016. As someone who doesn’t tune into the Super Bowl or the halftime show, I was shocked when videos of Rihanna on floating platforms in the middle of the football stadium hit the internet. Not only did she play her greatest hits and captivate the world with the incredible choreography, but she also announced the pregnancy of her second child during this performance.
Speaking of performances, Ariana DeBose mentioned Angela Bassett during her song at the Bafta Awards. This seemingly innocuous moment was made instantly meme-able with her delivery of the line, “Angela Bassett did the thing.” Nobody knows what “the thing” is, and the ambiguity made it all the more entertaining to onlookers. DeBose faced backlash for the “cringeworthy” line, so much so that she deleted her Twitter account, but it was an unnecessary amount of force for a silly line. As someone who has had much love for DeBose since West Side Story (2021), the moment was just a funny one-liner from someone who was nervous performing in front of a crowd of big stars, such as Angela Bassett.
- March: Eras Tour Begins
You couldn’t go a day without hearing about the United States leg of Taylor Swift’s “The Eras” Tour in March and, to this day, as she starts the South American leg. The anticipation was already at an all time high when Ticketmaster crashed in November of 2022, showing the sheer number of people desperate to get tickets to see the singer. Since then a lot has happened; she announced and released “Speak Now” (Taylor’s Version) and 1989 (Taylor’s Version), broke up with her boyfriend of six years Joe Alwyn, allegedly dated lead singer of The 1975 Matty Healy, and is now dating footballer Travis Kelce. So much Swiftie drama, so little time!
- May: Renaissance Tour Begins
Following up the explosive beginning of the Eras Tour is Beyoncé’s Renaissance Tour, another highly anticipated music event spanning months and boosting the economy of every state she graced. The most memorable moments of the tour have to be her daughter, Blue Ivy’s debut as a dancer, removing Lizzo’s name from “Break My Soul (The Queens Remix),” and the hilarious moment where she pointed to a crowd member and claimed that “she ain’t no diva.” Imagine having to walk out of the stadium knowing that Beyoncé thinks you aren’t a diva.
The Eras and Renaissance tour starting in such close succession caused the fans to almost pit the two against each other in terms of success and icon status. It has to be asked, why do we need to know who’s the “new Micheal Jackson”? Questions for the culture that may never be answered. The fact of the matter is that both are women in the industry who have very different styles of music and are completely crushing the game, no need to compare apples to oranges.
- June: The Canada Fires, the Titanic Submarine, and Colleen Ballinger’s Apology Video
June was arguably the most eventful month this year, so I chose three moments that I believe accurately describe the chaos.
Starting with the Canada Fires, they actually didn’t begin in June. Beginning in March, the smoke from fires in Canada moved down the east coast. The air levels were hazardous in several states and conditions were growing worrisome. The fear only grew when in early June visibility was severely limited in cities like New York. The world took on a hazy, orange look, and people walked around with heavy duty masks that likely hadn’t seen the light of day since the early days of the pandemic.
Instead of taking it seriously, however, New Yorkers and the internet alike took this time to joke about the apocalyptic landscape. Videos of people blasting the Dune soundtrack out of their apartment windows as well as influencers making characteristically out of touch videos took the internet by storm. The fires and the smoke once again wrapped us up in a discussion of climate change, global boiling, and what can really be done for the planet in terms of conservation.
The conversation usually ends up with us turning our heads to the rich. People who use private jets for the fun of it, completely uncaring of the almost criminal amount of carbon emissions. This, and also the absurdness of their use of their money. The uber-rich became the target of the internet’s scorn once again when the story of the Titan dropped.
To keep a story that spanned days short, a group of wealthy men set out to view the Titanic in a submarine. For $250,000 each they could see the iconic ship for what could honestly be described as a steal… and steal it did. The expedition was essentially a death wish that was eventually found to have killed everyone on board. Before this, however, people learned more about the Titan and… it was as if the joke wrote itself.
The submarine could only be described as a leaky, cold, wet soda can controlled by a Logitech controller that allegedly played “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion the entire time. The terrible comedy of it all was exasperated by the name of the company the expedition was under, OceanGate, reminiscent of the names given to other internet scandals like pizzagate, elsagate, or lipstickgate. This, as well as the name “Titan” for a submersible looking for the Titanic– a choice that was ruthlessly mocked and likened to naming a nuclear power plant “Chernobyl-lay.” It gets worse when both the captain of the submersible and the wife of one of the men on the submarine were found to have been descendants of people who died on the Titanic.
The entire unfolding of the events eventually landed people in two camps, one being that the men on the submersible were human beings too and that the laughingstock made of their tragic ends was wholly disrespectful, the other being that the writing was on the wall and that no person who didn’t have $250,000 to throw at such expedition would make such a poor choice in the first place. You can only assume which campfire I’m roasting my marshmallows at.
Speaking of poor choices, Colleen Ballinger, also known as “Miranda Sings” on Youtube, was once a beloved figure that shaped a lot of Gen-Z’s childhoods. So, when she was accused of the unimaginable during the summer, on top of accusations of grooming back in 2020 coming back to bite her, her fans as well as outsiders were tuned in to see how she would defend herself or if she would simply apologize. On June 28th, she posted a video simply titled ‘hi.’ and no one was prepared for the contents.
The shock, horror, and absurdity of it all that hit when she pulled out a ukulele and strummed three chords for ten minutes truly cannot be described. Between TikToks of the history of the Titanic and the Dune soundtrack, you would hear soundbites from the video. Some of the more infamous quotes include; “the only thing I’ve groomed is my two Persian cats,” “I’m not a groomer, I’m just a loser,” and of course “toxic gossip train.”
Following her evisceration by the internet in the days following, she disappeared for five months before returning on November 18th with a video titled ‘fall vlog.’ Her ‘hi.’ video is widely considered the worst “apology” (the word sorry isn’t uttered once in the entire video) in Youtube history.
- July: Barbenheimer
This year could truly be defined by the release of two of the most anticipated movies thus far— Barbie and Oppenheimer– on the same day. Barbenheimer, a portmanteau of the words Barbie and Oppenheimer, was really an exercise in effective advertising. Both movies were everywhere and the difference in tone and subject matter being spliced together in such a way made it appealing to moviegoers and the casual passerby alike. It was less of a war between the two movies and more of an understanding. The memes and the creation of Barbenheimer in the first place was a conversation about choice– either you watch the evolution of the complex nature of humankind and how it created an unstoppable, uncontrollable force that changed the world as we had once known it… or you could watch Oppenheimer. Before the movies came out, there was discussion about which came first in terms of viewing it in theaters and how to dress for it. People were gearing up to flock to the movies on July 21st for the clash of two very iconic figures for two very different reasons.
To no one’s surprise, with their combined powers Barbenheimer brought in over $2 billion dollars at the box office. A stunning home run for what could best be described as a big win for capitalism, Barbie pink, and brown suits.
- August: The Montgomery Brawl and Lil Tay Dies… or Not
An otherwise fleeting moment in internet history, the Montgomery Brawl, is dare I say, one of my Roman Empires. It all began on August 5th when the video of the entire altercation went viral. In the video, the black co-captain of a riverboat named Harriott II got off and went onto the dock to move a boat that wasn’t supposed to be there and stopped the boat from parking. The white owners of the boat quickly made their anger at the co-captain’s actions known, and their shouting match turned into a 6-to-1 all-out brawl.
This messy fight quickly turned into something unbelievably iconic with just the toss of a hat. Black people came from everywhere to even out the fight. The most memorable moments include the infamous folding chair and “Aqua-Mayne,” a sixteen year old boy who jumped out of a boat, swam all the way to shore, then came up swinging.
I mentioned the race of all those involved specifically because of the racial undertones throughout the entire event. It happened in Montgomery, Alabama, which is known for its ties to the Civil Rights Movement, as well as the ship ironically being very similarly named to abolitionist Harriet Tubman. Through the conversation about the altercation, we as a collective learned that the folding chair was created by a black man. Talk about what goes around, comes around.
Another childhood icon that came back around was internet celebrity and rapper Lil Tay, who was pronounced “dead” on August 9th, at age sixteen. Now, this would be a tragic and heartbreaking end to such a young life… if it was true.
To the surprise of everyone watching, the next day Lil Tay came back from the dead and claimed that it was a hoax and that she was alive and well. She is, in fact, alive and well and has even staged a comeback that was applauded by most. However, for those who saw her disastrous push back into the spotlight, they believed that it was an intentional and calculated move on her and her team’s part for her to play dead. This then brought up talks of child stars on Youtube as well as the unfair conditions they’re put under on the daily, as Lil Tay had been working under the direction of her brother and mother before disappearing from the internet in mid-2018. It was thought that it was her brother’s idea to claim that his sister was dead for a cash grab. Blood may be thicker than water, but bands may be thicker still.
- September: New York Flooding
Last year’s flooding came back with a vengeance to ring in the new school year. Images and videos of the train station, streets, and Fort Hamilton’s very own basement flooding weren’t hard to come by. This, with the rising sea levels, as well as the open secret that Manhattan is sinking, should be cause for concern. Who would want to visit the Empire State Building on a boat?
- October: The Bite of 1989
On October 27th, the highly anticipated Five Nights at Freddy’s movie as well as Taylor Swift’s album 1989 (Taylor’s Version) came out in tandem. Lovingly labeled, “the bite of 1989” (a reference to Five Nights at Freddy’s “the bite of ‘87” and the title of Swift’s new album) by fans, the event almost paid homage to Barbenheimer not even three months after it happened. Both Five Nights at Freddy’s and 1989 (Taylor’s Version) were rated highly by fans and most are excited to see the follow ups to both the franchise and the Taylor’s Version albums. One could say that they always come back.
- November: The Hunger Games Renaissance
The release of the fifth Hunger Games movie, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, has been in the back of our minds since the release of the first official trailer in April. As something that has essentially spanned this entire year, it seemed like a fitting conclusion to this list. During the time we spent waiting for the release, we got Olivia Rodrigo’s song “Can’t Catch Me Now,”Lucy Gray Baird’s rendition of “The Hanging Tree,” and some lovingly received behind-the-scenes footage of shooting the movie thanks to the end of the SAG and WGA strikes.
As of November 20th, the film is the highest rated in the franchise and fans as well as critics alike are celebrating the performances of the cast. This comes as a breath of fresh air from the overwhelming hate directed towards the film’s star, Rachel Zegler, for her less than tactful comments on her upcoming project, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. As someone who has loved her since her debut in West Side Story (2021) and sees the hypocrisy on dogpiling on Zegler but not Harrison Ford or Robert Pattinson for similar comments on their own respective franchises, her praise has been a long time coming.
The overall renaissance of the Hunger Games franchise in general has me holding my breath for what’s to come. What was once seen as a frivolous teen girl dystopia about a love triangle is now being dissected for what it truly is– a surgical look at our country and how closely aligned we are to what is seen as a perversion of the United States and its people through Panem, the setting throughout the series. My hope is that either this brings a new wave of well-crafted dystopian novels for us readers to dig into, or a newfound intensity on understanding what Suzanne Collins was trying to say through her franchise.
2023 has been an interesting year, and with one more month to go, one can only assume that there’s more intense internet culture brewing. I guess we’ll just have to keep our eyes open for what’s to come.
