From Kanye West’s breakdowns to Depp v. Heard filling up everyone’s social media feed, pop culture gave us many unforgettable moments last year. 2022 was the year of drama, and I loved it. From scandals to odd couple combinations and Chris Rock’s Oscar drama, the media had many things to report.

1.Kim Kardashian and Pete Davidson

As if the world hadn’t had enough of Pete Davidson swooping up major celebrities, he did it again. This time it was the odd combination of him and Kim Kardashian. After Kardashian publicly divorced Kanye West, she suddenly popped up with Davidson, and the world was stunned. Some people were confused about Davidson was able to pull Kardashian, while others were thrown off by the relationship as a whole. Although they did not last long, the internet is waiting to see what celebrity Davidson woos next.

2. Kanye’s year of tragedy

There is no way to ignore West’s year-long meltdown: he had everything from a divorce to losing many brand deals in the public eye. West officially lost billionaire status, went through a divorce with Kardashian and made threats toward her new boyfriend. Following this, he was banned from Twitter again, tarnished his entire career with his antisemitic comments and wearing a “White Lives Matter” shirt then made comments against George Floyd. In 2022, West became the most controversial person the internet has ever seen and ruined his career in doing so. 

3. Depp v. Heard

Speaking of divorce, the world finally witnessed the unpacking of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s abusive marriage. This case lasted around three months after Depp sued Heard for defamation. Most of the internet had Depp’s back believing that Heard had previously abused him, so mostly everyone rooted for Depp’s victory when watching the hours of trial. This case was honestly so unprofessional and ridiculously funny to watch, and people did not hesitate to make memes of the situation. Heard’s lawyers and Depp’s responses made the case incredibly hilarious and gave many people something to talk about.

4. The slap heard around the world

2022 had plenty of celebrity feuds, but the most iconic one happened between Chris Rock and Will Smith. At the Oscars, Rock had made a “G.I. Jane” joke about Jada Pinkett-Smith, Smith then took it upon himself to yell at Rock to “keep my wife’s name out your [sic] mouth” and then proceeded to walk on stage and slap Rock. This moment was groundbreaking, and the internet could not stop talking about it afterward. To this day we have no idea if it was planned or not.

5. Julia Fox actually did it herself

Before West and Kardashian’s divorce, honestly, I had no idea who Julia Fox was. Then West started dating her out of the blue, and their relationship was kind of odd. West still seemed obsessed with Kardashian, and he and Fox seemed like an off-brand Machine Gun Kelly and Megan Fox relationship. Either way when Fox was doing an interview talking about how she was West’s muse, kind of like how she was Josh Safdie’s muse in “Uncut Gems,” the world became obsessed with how she said “Uncut Gems.” This moment was honestly iconic. My TikTok was full of people reusing that audio. Later in the year, she said another legendary quote at the Met Gala that the internet also fell in love with and reused: “I actually did it myself, yeah.” Overall, post-West, Fox became an internet icon of 2022.

6. Marilyn Monroe dress

Speaking of the Met Gala, Kardashian wore something no one expected Marilyn Monroe’s ‘‘Happy Birthday Mr. President’’ dress. Not only does this dress have a lot of controversy by itself, but Kardashian didn’t even fit into the dress. She lost over 15 pounds to fit into the dress, which many believed gave the wrong impression to young women about one fitting into one’s clothes. Even after losing some weight she still did not completely fit into the dress, leaving the back unable to fully close. Unfortunately, damage to the seams has been reported. This specific Monroe dress provoked conversation because Monroe wore this dress when singing ‘’Happy Birthday’’ to John F. Kennedy in a flirtatious manner. This in turn sparked a conspiracy that Kennedy had an affair with Monroe. Kardashian was put on blast for multiple things surrounding this dress, and while it may have been iconic, many people stopped supporting her because of this.

7. Corn Kid

The internet is infamous for finding random interview clips and making them go viral. One of these clips happened to be the Corn Kid, Tariq, a young boy who had been interviewed by Recess Therapy while holding corn on the cob and discussing how delicious it is. This video blew up on all media platforms, and of course, The Gregory Brothers made it into a song. The Gregory Brothers are known for turning audios into viral pieces; in fact, this was their second song of the year made from random audio to surpass 20 million streams on Spotify, the first being “Chrissy, Wake Up”’ from “Stranger Things.” Tariq went from a child expressing his love for corn to an internet legend.

8. My money don’t jiggle jiggle

TikTok fed social media users with thousands of monumental audios. One specifically was a rap made up by Louis Theroux that he had performed while hosting a Weird Weekends episode. However, this performance wasn’t the reason he actually gained popularity. He starred in a “Chicken Shop Date with Amelia Dimoldenberg” YouTube video, where he was talking about the rap and sang a mini verse of it. Weeks later they released the song and it took on the charts. 

9. Trisha Paytas gave birth to who?

YouTube star Trisha Paytas announced her pregnancy in 2022, and needless to say, people had their opinions. From the beginning, Paytas knew that jokes and theories were going to be made, but it wasn’t until the internet had made the wildest presumption that she figured out how far the media would go. On Sept. 7, Paytas was close to birth after posting a tweet saying she was one centimeter dilated, and oddly enough the next day Queen Elizabeth II died. The internet immediately thought that Paytas was giving birth to the reincarnation of the queen. Paytas began trending on Twitter, and fans were taking this theory so far that they believed she had her baby and named it Elizabeth. A few days later, Paytas confirmed she was still pregnant and had yet to have her baby, and its name was definitely not Elizabeth. This was by far the most outrageous theory of 2022, and fans were living for it.

10. Adam Levine became an internet joke

Finishing off the most iconic/messiest/hilarious moments of 2022 is Adam Levine’s horrendous attempt at direct messaging girls. When the media caught wind of this, Levine was instantly put on blast for having an affair on his pregnant Victoria’s Secret model wife. Fortunately, karma was headed his way when the messages he sent were released, and they were so cringy that the internet had no option but to make fun of him. He used phrases like “that body of yours is absurd” and “you are 50 times hotter in person, and so am I hahahah,” little did he know that his messages would become a meme template. The moral of the story is if the internet finds out, beware.

2022 was a crazy year that was jampacked with memorable moments. The drama kept fans entertained, and people will be talking about all the monumental moments that were given to us for years to come. This year was definitely better than 2020 and even 2021 for most, and that is because the COVID-19 pandemic is finally coming close to an end. In 2023, I hope to see the world in a place of actual normalcy and even more eventful drama.

Contact Hailey Paddock at [email protected]