The past year featured massive moments that will become a part of history to be remembered, from the second time Donald Trump has won the votes of American to become president to moments we’ll presumably forget about in the coming year, like Moo Deng and the time that girl said, “Just spit on dat thang.”

Here are the biggest moments in popular culture from 2024.

10.) AI Takes Over

While the AI movement has been slowly growing, it seems that 2024 was filled with countless attempts to implement AI in everything. Whether people were trying to get AI to write scripts, replicate art or imitate deceased celebrities, the influx of AIs trying to do the tasks people actually enjoy and the power required to fuel them all is just making the eventual Judgement day get closer and closer…

— Ashley Hobley

9.) We all love Moo Deng

2024 was filled with a bunch of terrible so it isn’t really surprising that a baby pygmy hippo captured the internet’s hearts. Whether she is just lying around in the Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Thailand or biting at her zookeeper with her toothless mouth, she is just adorable. Go watch a Moo Deng video now because with every passing moment this hippo grows older and less deserving of our attention.

— Ashley Hobley

8.) Sean “Diddy” Combs is arrested

In March, Sean Combs AKA Diddy AKA Puff Daddy AKA Puffy AKA P. Diddy had several of his properties raided by the Department of Homeland Security and was charged with sex trafficking and racketeering in September. The charges against him are awful but with reports that some of these crimes happened at parties he held with other celebrities, this a story that is likely to also make headlines in 2025.

— Ashley Hobley

7.) Raygun goes big for Australia

Rachael Gunn AKA Raygun became a worldwide phenomenon when she competed in Breakdancing for Australia at the 2024 Paris Olympics. She did not do well, earning 0 points and, for many, was an embarrassment to the country with an uncompetitive and unathletic performance. Satirezed and a popular Halloween costume abroad, she was not well-received at home in Australia, with Change.org petitions started to investigate how she even got on the Olympic team while a legal battle against a comedy show only earned he more ill-will. While it might be best for her to go back into obscurity, I suspect we’ll be seeing more of Raygun in 2025.

— Ashley Hobley

6.) Hawk Tuah

Hailey Welch has ridden her meme fame from the 2024 viral street interview into the riches. Love her or hate her, this meme, clip, and the woman herself were some of the past year’s most significant and most memorable pop culture moments.

— Dylan Blight

5.) Sabrina Carpenter & Espresso

Sabrina Carpenter has been around for a long time, getting her big break on the show Girl Meets World in 2013 before releasing her first single in 2014. While her start had been rising for a while, with her opening for foreign legs of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour in 2023, the release of Espresso on 11th April took her to another stratosphere. The song peaked at number three on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, won the MTV Video Music Award for Song of the Year and became the second most streamed song of the year on Spotify at 1.6 billion. After two more successful singles in ‘Please Please Please’ and ‘Taste’, the release of her album ‘Short n’ Sweet’ and a tour that has dominated my social media feeds with people film what positions shes doing and who she’s arresting (those are things, it’s hard to explain), its fair to say 2024 was a great year for Sabrina Carpenter.

— Ashley Hobley

4.) Drake vs Kendrick

In 2023, the beef between Drake and Kendrick Lamar heated up following a few years of slight jabs and references in songs. But it was the release of a plethora of diss tracks between the two that ignited the largest feud in hip hop in 2024, and one that also garnered a massive release with Not Like Us from Kendrick that became his fourth number-one on the Billboard Hottest 100, making it his, in a lot of peoples minds, nail and winning lap in this feud.

— Dylan Blight

3.) Chappell Roan breaks out

Although the first song from The Rise and Fall of Midwest Princess was released in 2022, Chappell Roan had a huge year in 2024 with the release of the album in September 2023, but a tour and a social media takeoff had the singer and songwriter become a queer-icon overnight. She opened for Olivia Rodrigo’s tour in America and released ‘Good Luck, Babe!’ which was huge on TikTok; among other things, her year ended with a massive performance and win at the MTV Music Awards.   

— Dylan Blight

2.) BRAT

I’ve been a fan of Charlie XCX for a while now, but with the release of BRAT, I, like many others, dove deep into the world of lime green, devouring the album and answering any lifestyle question with “I’m a Brat.” What does it mean to be a BRAT? Charlie says sunglasses inside, which I can rock every day.

— Dylan Blight

1.) Trump Election

For months, the run-up to the USA election dominated the news cycle and late-night TV monologues as the race had many crazy twists and turns and crazy characters. From Joe Biden dropping out very late in the process to allow Kamala Harris to attempt to become the first female US President to Robert F. Kennedy, a third-party option best known for dumping a dead bear carcass in Central Park Zoo and having a brain worm in his head, endorsing Trump to J.D Vance becoming Trump‘s running mate despite news outlets not ruling out that he had fucked a couch, there was plenty to take in with countless others popping up during the campaign. Of course, somehow, despite telling numerous blatant lies and having just “concepts of” plans for how to tackle any meaningful issue, the thrice-impeached and convicted felon Donald Trump won the electoral vote and will return to the White House, surely to once again keep us all on edge for another 4 years. It can’t be 2029 soon enough.

— Ashley Hobley