Magazines across the board seemed to have reached a consensus: 2011 sucked. Natural disasters, sex scandals, a whole parade of crazy Republican candidates – the news was definitely a drag. Did we just have bad karma, as a society? Since they covered the important stuff, I’ll look at the little things, and decide once and for all if 2011 was boring/sucked.

Sex

• James Blake’s album made hipster sex 10% better across the board. Verdict: +

• Arnold’s secret baby became a teen. Verdict: –

• Good year for dick pics. Verdict: –

• Kris Humphries and Kim Kardashian found humanity at its closest to the mating rituals of pre-society humans. Verdict: +

• Straight men everywhere (or at least in Minnesota) want to touch Ricky Rubio in his secret area. Verdict: +

Oversharing

• Marie Calloway’s “Adrien Brody” got a ton of media attention even though it’s just another “kid trying to write like Tao Lin” thing. Verdict: –

• Oversharing became a prominent type of Internet lit this year. Verdict: +

• Mark Zuckerberg likes oversharing because it leads to a more “open society,” bigger Facebook profits. Verdict: +

On the Internet

• PIPA and/or SOPA are really dumb and the government likes them, not to mention that protecting against Internet piracy should not be a top priority in this country right now. Verdict: –

• Flash is officially kinda dead. HTML5 is cool. Verdict: +

• This. Verdict: +

• We lost Steve Jobs. Verdict: –

Television

• No one figured out NBC Thursday’s empty slots, Community is on “extended hiatus” and journalists kept saying it was a great season for “women in comedy.” Verdict: –

• Bye bye Regis Philbin! Verdict: –

• Bye bye soap operas! Verdict: +

• There was no Lost to unite everyone in front of the TV but there were a whole lot of smart shows people watched religiously, like Breaking Bad. Verdict: +

• You officially don’t need TV anymore if you have the Internet so suck it XFINISUX. Verdict: +

Music/Snacks

• People like to argue about Kreayshawn. Verdict: +

• We realized Korea made music. Verdict: +

• Lana Del Rey exists. Verdict: +

• Chillwave stuck around, but started to suck less. Or maybe I just got used to it. Verdict: +

• Rihanna found love in a hopeless place.  Also, pop music in general seemed to get better. Verdict: +

The Verdict: 2011 was dramatic, colorful and brought way better music than 2010. It sucked, but it was never boring.

–Becky Lang