Perhaps more than at the end any other year, people have greeted the end of 2016 with a huge, exhausted sigh of relief. It has been, by most accounts, a tough year. Indeed, twelve months ago when I greeted the new year with a bad case of strep throat and a mysterious weight increase, I thought to myself “this does not portend good things.” And now I know.
Here are some of the punches we all felt.
Bowie died
It never makes sense when an artist of David Bowie’s stature and influence dies and any number of reality TV stars keep breathing, but the year was new and hope springs eternal. I went to Soho in New York and put a flower outside the iconic gender-bending rockstar’s building and sang along to “Let’s Dance” as it was performed live by a barber quartet all dressed in Bowie attire. I had barely stopped playing Bowie’s music when, four days later….
Alan Rickman died.
Not gonna lie, I had a proper cry. The death of the best voice on film sent me into a vortex of Sense and Sensibility, Love Actually and Harry Potter movie marathons for close to a month. I saw Harry Potter 7 part 2 about 10 times, pausing each time to sob uncontrollably when Rickman’s character has his death scene. I’m tearing up right now.
Prince died
Which was more of a tragedy for other people than it was a personal hit to my heart. This may just have been a generational thing, or that I stopped listening to his music with as much verve after reading what Jehova’s Witnesses actually believe. Still, RIP you hip little man.
Zika
Suddenly no baby was immune, no mosquito non-lethal and no Latin American country safe to travel to lest you brought back the new-age plague that is Zika. This was especially awkward because the Summer Olympics were in Brazil this year, although people kind of got over the whole feel-good vibe of the Olympics pretty quickly because of the shadow of Doom that was…
Brexit
I’m still angry at Britain’s idiotic shortsighted voting mass that childishly decided to leave the EU, proving that a misinformed, xenophobic campaign based on untruths and scaremongering can actually convince an entire nation to vote against their better judgment, and more importantly, better interest. It was the first time that I felt the global climate of right-wing nationalism is not a fringe element within certain countries, but rather a growing and staunchly powerful force that we will all have to deal with. The implications for getting the vote so wrong were frightening, especially when you saw the same politicians who had pushed for the Leave vote looking slightly worried that they’d won, and then backtrack on the promises they had made, leaving everyone looking rather stupid.
2016 has been full of anguish for many
I put on 20 lbs in the first half of 2016 because I thought munching on Baked Lays was basically like munching on carrots. This turned out to be violently untrue. Although not a global event, it did rock my world. If something like this has happened to you, I want you to know: I feel you. If it didn’t, well, this isn’t really a conversation we should be having.
The iPhone 7 was awful
The first post-Steve Jobs iPhone came out and removed the earphone jack, forcing you to buy Apple’s wireless earphones. Not Cool. On the plus side, the race to have a new phone has stagnated and people can now chill out for a while, especially since rival brands explode in your lap anyway.
Global Warming
The first six months of the year were the hottest ever. In short, where is the ice? Answer: we melted it, and we ain’t un-melting it.
Brad and Angelina broke up
The United Colors of Brangelina broke up, and all the UN’s children and all the UN’s men, couldn’t put Brangelina together again. Love is a figment of our entertainment-hungry imaginations. As a side note, Beyonce was cheated on. #lovesucks
Terrorist attacks
A lot of people in the West think this is a bad year for terrorism. That is to say: they think that with ISIS on the run in Iraq, terrorism as perceived and experienced by Westerners is waning. They are wrong. (No, your incoming president has not already melted away half the world’s would-be Islamist bombers just by noisily broadcasting his surveillance plans.) I’m going to come out and say it: just because white people feel something, or suddenly wake up to something, does not mean the whole world has to follow suit.
Comic Book Movies are not going away anytime soon
And I say this as a comic book fan. Once, just once, I would like to walk into a big budget movie without knowing that it’ll dangle an incomplete ending in the hopes of getting me back in 18 months. I’m looking at you, Batman. I’m looking at you real hard.
Trump is President of the United States.
What can one say? What can one do? I don’t have the word count to go into the intricate ways in which this nasty, overgrown man-child is going to shaft us all. The only thing that makes the US election results worse is knowing that although birthed in 2016, we have four more years of this Hell to endure. From skipping intelligence briefings to tweeting diplomacy, Trump’s presidency is the reality TV of the world. Except there is no editor. And it’s just reality. Heil.
George Michael Died.
Last Xmas, he gave us his heart. But the very same day, he took it away.
