by Charlie Albuery
We’re fast approaching two weeks into the New Year, when the bang of New Year’s Eve and our yearly half-hearted commitments to change for the better slowly begin to give way to the whimper of a return from the festive season to our standard, monotonous lives.
A few days ago, I was asked to sum up my 2014 - and found it absolutely impossible. A year (while essentially an arbitrary measurement of time) is a horribly long-winded and complex time period; like any other year, SO MUCH STUFF happened in 2014, surely it’d be impossible to boil down to a few key points?
But then I saw that Google had made this video:
Quite
besides producing a video that I found genuinely moving and inspiring going
forward, Google have done what I considered impossible with regards to one
person on a worldwide scale: used their clout as the world’s foremost search
engine to more or less condense 2014 into ten key talking points, the ten most
googled phrases of the last year.
I found this a rather neat way to sum up the
public zeitgeist over the last twelve months and it is something I think you
should all see, to remember the highs and lows of 2014 for yourselves.
#10 - Sochi Olympics – I can’t be the only one who completely forgot we had a Winter Olympics this year… Anyway, we once again saw half the population suddenly become transfixed by and quasi-experts in curling as seems to happen every four years.
#9 – Frozen
– Despite coming out in late 2013, Disney’s latest princess-themed offering has
shown remarkable staying power both in terms of continuing to earn money with
merchandise, DVD and soundtrack sales as well as in the public consciousness, I
suspect largely due to the vast number of parody and cover videos seemingly
inescapable on the internet.
#8 – ISIS –
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is a Sunni Islamic rebel group that has
committed numerous human-rights abuses and war crimes; without wishing to delve
too deeply, this group's extremist political agenda means they will still very
much have a media and current-affairs presence in 2015.
#7 -
Conchita Wurst – On a far lighter note, the delightful Thomas Neuwirth, better known by the
name of his drag act Conchita Wurst, won the Eurovision song contest this year
with an anthem of acceptance and self-confidence titled ‘Rise Like a Phoenix’.
Both surprisingly and wonderfully, the reaction to this was almost universally
positive, with only very limited conservative backlash.
#6 - Flappy
Bird – This is ridiculous and it angers me that people cared that much about
this stupid app. That said, my high score was 47, and I’m proud.
#5 - ALS Ice
Bucket Challenge – A charity push for a particular form of neurodegenerative
disease that raised hundreds of thousands of pounds and huge amounts of
awareness for the disease and its charitable fund, simply by people
(celebrities, politicians, philanthropists and even us normos) dumping buckets
of iced water over their heads. It just goes to show that being a little silly
can really have a positive impact on the world sometimes.
#4 -
Malaysia Airlines – A plane, more specifically the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370
totally just disappeared from the face of the earth, apparently never to be
found. This bizarre event made the world become just a little bit scarier in
2014…
#3 – Ebola –
Ebola tragically broke out in West Africa in March 2014 and has begun to slowly
spread around the world, despite a largely successful movement of aid and
healthcare being put into place to prevent anything on a pandemic or epidemic
level. SO far there have been over 21,000 reported cases. This new Ebola story
originated in 2014 but certainly will not be disappearing any time soon.
#2 - World
Cup – Sports or something, I guess..? No comment
So, that was 2014, the highs and the lows. Here’s to 2015 guys – let’s see if we can make it as eclectic as last year!
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