2011: Was it Boring? Did it Suck?
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.