Turning 10: How 2013 Became the Year of Comedic Chaos
From viral videos of screaming goats to pondering the question, “what did the fox actually say?”, 2013 came in like a wrecking ball, proving to be a year filled with nothing but antics and chaos. Although it may have felt like yesterday, 2013 has turned 10 years old. Rather than grieving the time passed, let's celebrate the memories it had to offer!
Before creating dances for popular audios on TikTok, 2013 was the pioneer of fast paced content with the introduction of Vine. The once-beloved comedic social media app was home to many of the TikTok audios used today, including “Hurricane Katrina, more like Hurricane Tortilla!” and “Hey, my name is Trey and I have a basketball game tomorrow.” Not only did it offer inspiration for your senior-year yearbook quotes, Vine provided platforms to many current internet influencers including, but not limited to, Kurtis Conner, Logan Paul, Jake Paul, and Danny Gonzalez.
Alongside Vine, YouTube dominated our computer screens, providing content for everyone’s interests. Did you want entertaining and hilarious gameplays? Pewdiepie was a click away, remaining today as one of the most subscribed channels on YouTube. Were you interested in random and chaotic skits? Miranda Sings and Smosh were the channels to subscribe to. Remember an era when family channels were actually engaging and not the Ace Family? 2013 was that year, with channels like Daily Bumps offering wholesome content. Before the beauty community was humorous and influencers were being canceled over using fake eyelashes, Bethany Mota and Zoella graced the screens with simple fashion and makeup tutorials, while Jenna Marbles offered her own comedic twist on said tutorials. The Internet was nothing but energetic in the golden age of pop culture, being the backbone and trailblazer of today’s online humor.
Coinciding with social media, the mobile game world was not only entertaining, but addicting. 2013 introduced the iconic yet mind-numbing game “Flappy Bird”, where a pixelated round bird would hurdle through various tubes with a singular tap of a thumb. Despite seeming simple and light-hearted, the mobile app quickly grew competitive so much so that the developer of the game, Dong Nguyen, had to remove the adorable bird and his Super Mario-esc tubes off of all mobile stores in 2014. While “Flappy Bird” was unfortunately short-lived, “Dumb Ways to Die'' was a hilarious alternative. Providing outlandish scenarios of death through the guise of a catchy tune, this inherently absurd game had players complete random tasks to hopefully avoid a painful, yet comedically, gruesome death. While the game was immediately followed with its sequel “Dumb Ways to Die 2”, the original will always trump its successor, and we can thank 2013 for that.
Image Courtesy: PCMag
Straying from the internet, there were many pop culture moments from our favorite singers that turn 10 years old as of this year. For starters, 2013 brought us Beyonce’s iconic halftime show at Super Bowl XLVII with killer choreography, out of this world vocals, and even a legendary Destiny's Child reunion. Queen B was so powerful that the Super Bowl experienced a blackout during the third quarter of the game. While the light system has improved a decade later, one thing remains the same: this is Beyonce's universe and we're just living in it.
Image Courtesy: NPR and The New York Times
While on the topic of memorable performances, we cannot forget Miley Cyrus during the 2013 MTV’S Video Music Awards. Singing songs from her new album, Bangerz, Cyrus popularized “twerking”, which immediately sparked headlines about herself and this controversial performance. Little did she know, her choice of dance moves would still be used by millions today. Despite the criticized performance, Cyrus redeemed herself by winning MTV’s Best Video for “Wrecking Ball”, another iconic song from that same album. Of course, in honor of Taylor Swift’s Era’s Tour kicking off this month, she’s owed an honorable mention to her 2013 performance as she opened for the Grammy’s that year singing one of her hundreds of hits: “We Are Never Getting Back Together” (sorry Mr. Styles).
Image Courtesy: Daily Record
With 2013 being the year of performance, the big screens were no exception. Disney spared no expense when it came to their reputation of providing classic films with memorable songs, as Frozen premiered November 27th. The second the world heard “Let It Go”, we immediately took that message to heart. The song reached No. 5 on the Billboard Charts, becoming the first Top 10 hit from Disney since “Colors of the Wind” from the 1995 film, Pocahontas. Alongside Frozen, Despicable Me 2 was released this year and quickly became another success just like its predecessor. To this day, the franchise remains a huge success as Minions: The Rise of Gru came out nearly a decade later.
Image Courtesy: IMDb
2013 was truly a year of nostalgia. With its entertainment, music, and movies, 2013 was filled with impactful moments in history and pop-culture that are still reminiscent today. So after taking a stroll down memory lane, I think it’s time for us to welcome 2013 to the double digits club in addition to thanking it for practically raising us after all.
Strike Out,
Olivia Wagner
Olivia Wagner is a content writer for Strike Magazine Orlando. In addition to writing, she loves acting, dancing, and updating her personal blog which can be found here! As an archetypal cancer, she loves crying to both movies and music. Her freetime consists of blasting Taylor Swift and trying to write the next best sitcom. You can reach her at ogw@knights.ucf.edu and @livwgnr on all socials.
