Looking back on 2024, it has been an eventful year in pop culture. We saw the rise
of some new stars, some iconic drama and of course lots of memes. Here’s a list of
my personal favourites that really made 2024 culturally significant.
Taylor Swift Dominance
I cannot talk about pop culture without mentioning the unstoppable force that is
Taylor Swift. 2024 marked the ending of the biggest tour in history, the Eras Tour, but
Swift has had multiple moments this year that have cemented her as a pop culture
icon. Most notably we have to mention the release of her wildly successful album,
‘The Tortured Poets Department’ that she announced the release of whilst winning
the album of the year Grammy for her 2023 ‘Midnights’ album. Just a week later we
saw her celebrating with her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, after his Super Bowl win which
made them an ‘it couple’ early on this year and demonstrated Swift’s immense
cultural impact.
Kendrick Lamar versus Drake
When I think back on 2024, this beef was a real cultural moment back in March and
April. Even though I was not a huge fan of either artist I, like many others, found
myself getting really invested in their public feuding. The constant diss tracks back
and forth created a lot of discourse on social media, as well as a hit song in Lamar’s
‘Not Like Us.’ While it is fairly obvious now that Lamar came out on top, the entire
feud was definitely a cultural moment that started a lot of conversations and severely
damaged a successful artist’s career.
Brat Summer and Stars on the Rise
You can’t talk about 2024 without mentioning the phenomenon that was brat
summer. Charli XCX saw new peaks in her career with this album that really took on
a life of its own and created a common phrase people used in everyday life. The
impact of Charli’s brat album cannot be understated and to understand its
significance, you only need to look at Collin’s Dictionaries word of the year, ‘brat.’
Also in this category, I want to mention other artists who have risen to meteoric
levels of fame this year after working for many years to achieve this success.
Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter immediately come to mind as artists who
became huge stars practically overnight and went from small theatre shows to
headlining major festivals all around the world. Songs like ‘Espresso’ and ‘HOT TO
GO!’ would definitely make it onto the soundtrack of 2024.
Wicked movie
This film is a more recent addition to the list, but it has created such a huge wave on
social media that it has become one of the most iconic movie releases of the year.
There was huge excitement surrounding this film during the build up to its release,
mainly due to the musical’s already huge fan base and the star-studded cast. The
marketing for this film was also excellent but the real success of Wicked came from
the fact that it lived up to the hype. It was great to see people dressing up in pink and
green to go to the cinema, reminiscent of the Barbie phenomenon in 2023. When a
film can market itself to be one of the best films of the year and then live up to those
expectations, it deserves a spot on a list of significant pop culture moments.
Oasis Reunion
While this pop culture moment may be more centralised to Europe, it was definitely a
defining moment in pop culture this year. One of the biggest bands of the 90s and
early 2000s, coming back for a tour after years of feuding was really exciting. I think
a major part of the excitement was not just due to the bands still huge popularity but
also everyone’s surprise. Liam Gallagher had appeared on the Jonathan Ross show
just 4 months before the announcement of the reunion denying any kind of hope that
people may have had for the brothers to reconcile. While it is clear now that Liam
had perhaps just not wanted to ruin the announcement, it made the reunion that
much more shocking. People had really begun to lose hope after so many years of
them being apart. This is all without mentioning the absolute chaos it was to try and
get tickets to the reunion tour, which serves as proof of their pop culture impact.
My Favourite Memes of 2024
While the celebrities, movies, and moments that make up this list all had huge
cultural impact in 2024, the language of pop culture in social media is memes so it is
important to celebrate the best ones that came out of this year.
Perhaps my absolute favourite was the Glasgow Willy Wonka Experience that
created the viral ‘Oompa Loompa m*th lab’ meme. This meme is included in pop
culture significance because it is still cited to this day as one of those times on
Twitter where you ‘just had to be there.’
Another of my favourites is Jojo Siwa’s ‘Karma’ era. This was marking the release of
Jojo Siwa’s new song ‘Karma’ which saw her transition into a new ‘bad girl’ persona.
The Kiss-esque makeup paired with honestly confusing choreography resulted in
some memes for the ages.
The birth of the adorable Pygmy hippo ‘Moo Deng’ also gave us some of the best
memes of the year. Everyone loves a cute baby animal and Moo Deng became the
new obsession of the internet. It is not entirely obvious why her or how it happened,
but I was very happy to discover his new animal, and I definitely hit like on a lot of
Moo Deng videos this year.
Most recently the lookalike contest phenomenon has become my new favourite
thing. I loved seeing the success of the initial Timothee Chalamet one in New York,
where the actor showed up. From then it was great to see how that led to multiple
contests all over the world and how the lookalike contests became a meme online.
It’s really fun how a silly contest can become a worldwide trend and a moment in the
pop culture timeline of 2024.
I understand there are many moments that I have missed from this list but overall,
2024 has been a great year for pop culture and I look forward to more in 2025.