a round-up of end of year round-ups
+ a compilation of the words of the year, people of the year, books of the year, icks of the year...
My angels, it’s been a big week of chasing down this book deadline and trying to mainline some joy as the winter months are ramping up over here! To be quite honest with you, Bel and I have been spending most of our nights snuggled up on the couch like uni students, re-watching Gilmore Girls and Girls like this:
The other thing that’s been bringing us LOTS of joy has been our SYSCA Supporter catch-ups! It’s been SUCH a cute way to finish off a big and weird year - you’re our fave people alive and we just LOVE you 𓆩♡𓆪
SYSCA XMAS SALE!!! 𓆩♡𓆪
And my angels - we’ve been SEEING all your notes about how times are tough at the mo - espesh for this time of year! We get it and we feel it, so we wanted to have a sale for the whole month of December for anyone wanting all the goodies that come with being a SYSCA supporter at 25% off!
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‘Tis the season for end-of-year awards/ round-ups:
First of all, ‘tis and ‘twas are for some reason my BIGGEST ICKS online (espesh when used in an Instagram caption) so I can’t let you think that I used them easily just then. Second of all, it’s at that point of the year when my emails are full of PR people sending me their ‘end of year’ round-ups or ‘trend predictions’ for 2024, so I thought I’d compile some of them for you because I’m good like that 𓆩♡𓆪
Words of the Year:
‘Matilda’ is the Australian National Dictionary Centre’s Word of the Year (after the Australian women’s soccer team!!)
‘Hallucinate’ is the Cambridge Dictionary Word of the Year (referencing AI hallucinations)
‘Cozzie livs’ is The Macquarie Dictionary Word of The Year (referencing the cost of living crisis, also my fave pick so far)
People of the Year:
Taylor Swift Won Time’s Person Of The Year (and say what you want but I really enjoyed this article about it even if she is sooooooo millennial.)
Also here’s the Forbes 30 under 30 (I’m always a bit skepty of lists like this - kinda feels like a ‘who you know’ type of PR thing to me. Or am I just jealous that I will never be on there? Something to consider…)
Books of the Year:
The Best books of 2023 (The Guardian)
The Best Books of 2023 (Vulture)
The 38 Best Books We Read in 2023 (LitHub)
The 10 Best Books of 2023 (NY Times)
Trends/ social stuff:
Instagram released their ‘Trend Talk’ and my favourite findings were about how Gen Z shows we’ve got a crush on someone:
“The top ways Gen Z flirt with their crush on Instagram include liking someone’s story, putting someone on their story or photo dump, or adding someone to their Close Friends list.”
AND our biggest icks which apparently are:
#1 Chewing with their mouth open
#2 Bad sense of humor or taste in memes
#3 Dirty fingernails
#4 Uses baby voice
#5 Follows their ex on IG
Reddit also released some of their most popular posts of 2023 (some of them are SO wholesome)
r/MadeMeSmile: This woman was so nervous about flying, so the flight attendant explained every sound and bump
r/funny: Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston are shocked by the size of an Australian reporter
r/pics: Hi Reddit today is grans 100th birthday and she wanted to show off her hairdo for such a special day
r/AnarchyChess: If this post gets 131,072 upvotes, I'll post again with twice as many grains of rice
TikTok gave us a year in review where they noted that their top trends were:
"Front row (on TikTok): The TikTok community gave us front-row access to this year's hottest tours featuring pop stars like Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Sabrina Carpenter and Paramore.
How often do you think about the Roman Empire?: A simple question to one man shocked many about how often people think about the Roman Empire in their everyday lives.
McDonald's Grimace Shake: A milkshake honoring one of the company’s iconic mascots took on a life of its own as creators added their own HorrorTok spin on the Grimace Shake.
Planet of the Bass: Inspired by 90’s Euro Dance music, Kyle Gordon parodied the sound with his meaningless lyrics and hypnotic production to create a track landed him some superstar superfans, including the Jonas Brothers who invited him to open for their tour in August.
The Year of the Girl: Trends and movements like girl dinner, rat girl and tomato girl summers, hot girl walks, and the girlhood trend set to Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For” from Barbie helped define the year and usher in the ‘girl-aisssance’.
Maybe you’d be expecting me to be cynical about wrap-up lists like this (because I never shut up about how the internet is stripping us of individuality) but honestly there’s something quite nice about tying up a year in a bow, seeing what the hell (and who the hell) we were all interested in at particular points of it and knowing that NONE of us could have predicted most of what happened. Here’s to next year and the weirdness it will bring!
Culture Vulture: Billie Eilish vs Variety, Taylor Swift vs Deuxmoi, Em Rata vs… Body Positivity?
Yikes! A big week on Culture Vulture this week. We’ve got:
Variety “outing” Billie Eilish
Taylor Swift and her publicist going head to head with Deuxmoi
People calling Em Rata fatphobic for her recent photoshoot
And what’s up with all these gift guides?
The Shit Show: Rizz, Roblox & Time’s Person Of The Year is a Shit Show
This week on the Shit Show we chat about Rizz winning word of the year, Taylor Swift winning PERSON of the year, a Youtuber who fakes a plane crash, brands creating worlds in Roblox & why are kids crawling through malls? If I do say so myself, this felt like a classic Luce and Squish ep fueled by sibling banter that I think you’ll LOVE.
Our Fourth Wing Book Club Pod:
Some other things for you to consume:
Bel and I have been deep in our Girls rewatch so it was very fitting that Shameless just dropped part one of a two-part series on Lena Dunham
Colin and Samir did an incredibly long/ in-depth podcast with Emma Chamberlain
This month’s Book Club pick ‘I’m a Fan’ by Sheena Patel
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