Kanye’s Rants
Think you had a bad year? I’ma let you finish, but Kanye West had one of the… you know where we’re going with this. The last 12 months haven’t been kind to Yeezus. For every expertly layered look and sell-out sneaker the King of cringe gave the world, we also got 15-minutes of music, a 10-minute rant, 38 dehydrated Yeezy models, a 16-part tweet-cum-loan-application to Mark Zuckerberg, and one (admittedly rather funny) #FingersInTheBootyAssBitch hashtag. Here’s hoping the walking God complex knows how to rise again next year.
Celebrities Dying
Celebrity deaths come in threes, right? Not in 2016. This year it’s been a nonstop onslaught of high-profile clog-popping, from David Bowie to Alan Rickman, Terry Wogan to Ronnie Corbett, Prince to Gene Wilder. Please all stop immediately.
Vloggers
Whether Vogue likes it or not, the blogosphere is here to stay. And we’re not about to start bashing those who have built a genuine following from having something of note to say. But the other ones that do little more than walk around with a Go-Pro, recording what they eat, when they fart, and who they kiss (and get paid £40k a pop for the pleasure) can go suck it.
Pokémon Go
No grown, job-holding man should spend his day chasing fictional video game characters around side streets, fields and shopping malls. If you come to me in 2017 to share the hilarious location at which you found Charizard, expect me to tell you to poke it up your Pikachu.
Logo Appropriation
Ever delivered a package in your life? Ever read a copy of Thrasher? No? Then take that bloody thing off.
Referendums
Never before has there been such political discord in the UK. Our dinner tables were divided. Becky from year 8 suddenly became Facebook’s leading political analyst. And, most alarmingly, an MP lost her life for espousing her opinion. Of any future prime ministers, we ask this: please make these decisions for us. It’s kind of your job.
The Apprentice
Britain’s ‘brightest business minds’? Pull the other one, Lord Sugar. After a series of unforgivable gaffes, it’s safe to say that The Apprentice is no different to any other reality TV show – you’ve got the crap suits of TOWIE, Geordie Shore’s hollow bravado and the average IQ of the cast of The Real Housewives of Cheshire.
Crocs
Forget Clinton. Forget Trump. The real devil is plastic, not political. And while such monstrosities stomp the earth, we’re condemned to endure this Frankenstein of a shoe until they die out. Granted, Christopher Kane may have tried to steer Crocs cool this season, but no amount of crystal studs will change our minds.
Selfies
A couple of years ago, our mates would take the piss out of an ill-advised lone selfie. They now double-tap. Because it’s seemingly OK to duck pout, or film yourself dancing in a club, or inflict the world with the same ‘pre-drinks’ photo with the same people in every single Friday night. Spend less time curating your online persona and more actually improving yourself; read a book, update your CV or even pop to the gym. Just don’t subject us to another #gains photo afterwards.
Oversized Down Jackets
The release of Zoolander 2 wasn’t the only thing that had men dressing ‘Derelicte’ this year. Belgian designer Raf Simons has a lot to answer for, too. At his AW16 show in Paris, Simons showed larger-than-life oversized down jackets which, although impactful and cool in the way that they made models look sort of like anime characters, will inevitably make everyone else look like they’ve taken to wearing sleeping bags outdoors.
Ghosting
OK, so technically the term for digitally disappearing off the face of the earth wasn’t coined in the past 12 months, but 2016 was the year ghosting blew up. And we get it. Ghosting is easy. Ghosting is painless. Ghosting doesn’t involve taking 5 minutes out of your impossibly busy life to formulate an honest, mature and clearly worded explanation as to why you’d rather not see this person ever again, thanks very much. But ghosting is also risky (never ghost where you eat). And testosterone-sappingly wimpy. So please, just text them FFS.
Motivational Quote-Sharers On Social Media
‘Keep calm and die a slow, painful death.’
Restaurants With Sharing Plates
Feeling hungrier now than when you started 2016? You’re not alone. Thanks to an explosion in ‘neighbourhood style’ restaurants operating around the abhorrent concept of ‘sharing plates’ in the past 12 months, we’ve never spent more on less when dining out. £3 for a cat saucer of seaweed? Sign me up. £5 for a cube of sourdough bread and what could only be described as a generous spit of olive oil? Delicious. Stop letting money-hungry restaurateurs guilt you for having an appetite. You are not selfish. You are perfectly capable of sharing. Make 2017 the year you stop haemorrhaging money to pay for restaurants’ inability to serve different types of food at the same time.
— What do you want to see the back of in 2017? Let us know your Room 101 items in the comments section…
