By Garrett Fisch, Staff Writer
2016 will be remembered as the year that everyone was stressed out and constantly under duress. From a political climate that was characterized by controversy to the deaths of many stars along with terrors both domestic and foreign, this combination of problems made 2016 truly the worst year ever.
Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump
A matchup that will go down in infamy. Two candidates surrounded in controversies like deleting thousands of emails or how the new president has continued to make rude and vulgar comments about women, Latinos, disabled people and more caused for many people to want to vote for third party ‘candidate’ Gary Johnson. It seemed as though political alignments determined friend groups and also who would argue with each other aimlessly on Twitter. The 2016 election, caused for both of the political parties, to polarize the other side, often without even hearing out their points or platforms.
Remembering Celebrities
2016 also saw the deaths of many stars that were close to many hearts, both in sports and in pop culture. Golfer Arnold Palmer, pitcher Jose Fernandez, boxer Muhammad Ali, women’s basketball coach Pat Summitt and commentator Craig Sager all passed away in the sports world. Singers Merle Haggard, Prince and George Michael, actor David Bowie and actresses Carrie Fisher and her mother Debbie Reynolds along with political figures Nancy Reagan, Antonin Scalia and Fidel Castro saw the ends of their lives. It seemed as though as soon as we finished mourning the loss of one star, another would pass in succession.
Worldwide Bleakness
In 2016, politics throughout the world was disheartening and caused many to worry about the future. ISIS gained support worldwide as well as carrying out hundreds of terrorist attacks. Terror attacks in Belgium, Nice and Orlando took the lives of many and changed the lives of others. The shooting in Orlando at the Pulse nightclub took the lives of 49 people, making it the deadliest shooting by a single gunman in US history and deadliest terrorist attack on US soil since 9/11. Britain took an unforeseen exit from the European Union that could cause terrible diplomatic and economic consequences in the future. US race relations took a turn for the worse after multiple police shootings caused riots and a war on police that resulted in five Dallas officers dying from gunshots in July, making it the deadliest attack on US law enforcement since 9/11.
Social Media Sucks
Among the problems throughout the world, social media heightened to new levels of crap. The rise of finstas (aka fake instagrams) allowed people to post rants and idiotic pictures they would not dare post on their actual instagram, to a different account with a ‘witty’ name. These finstas are like listening to a song over and over again, it is great at first but starts to get old really quickly. Twitter also allowed us to obsess over Harambe, the slain gorilla from the Cincinnati Zoo, and took the levels of remembrance to new heights. It started as pictures and tweets of love to the ‘Sweet Prince’ but eventually got to the point of people selling t-shirts and merchandise remembering the primate. 2016 was so bad, that Harambe got 11,000 write-in votes in the 2016 presidential election. A dead gorilla got 11,000 votes.
2016 was just awful. What does not kill you makes you stronger, right? Maybe 2017 will be the year that everything gets better.
Photo from Kiplinger.