Best: Pop Culture

Moo Deng’s rise to fame

As Gossip Girl’s Serena van der Woodsen once said, “Lipstick lasts longer, but gloss is more fun,” and 2024’s “It Girl” is the glossiest girl around. Some may tell you that the title belongs to Taylor Swift or Sabrina Carpenter, but Moo Deng undoubtedly blows them all out of the water. With gorgeous glass skin and a relatable personality—who doesn’t love to scream sometimes?—this slippery pygmy hippo has captured the hearts of the internet. Originally presented to the public by Atthapon Nundee, her zookeeper, Moo Deng gained popularity when content creator Yammi Saracino translated the original content into English. With every video, Moo Deng has formed a positive little corner of the internet full of smiles and dopamine-spiking cuteness.  

Chappell Roan yells at paparazzi

Chappell Roan has had an incredible year, but her sudden rise to stardom has brought some challenges, particularly with paparazzi. A tense moment at the MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) found her yelling “You shut the fuck up!” at an impatient photographer hounding her for another photo. Roan later told Rolling Stone that she suffers from social anxiety and that moments like those—with everyone screaming—are incredibly overwhelming. Her insistence on creating boundaries is particularly impactful as we’ve seen an influx of early-2000s stars over the past few years speak more openly about the toll that paparazzi culture has taken on their mental health. It’s exciting to see a new generation of pop stars set a better precedent for a healthier relationship with the media. 

Best: Film

Challengers (Luca Guadagnino)

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, everything in the world is about sex except sex, which is about…tennis? Well, at least according to Challengers it is. Luca Guadagnino’s romantic drama starring Mike Faist, Josh O’Connor, and the one and only Zendaya follows tennis prodigy-turned-coach Tashi Duncan (Zendaya) who attempts to turn her once-promising tennis player husband, Art Donaldson (Faist), into a US Open Champion. To boost his confidence, Tashi signs him up for a low-level Challenger event competing against his former best friend and now rival—and Tashi’s ex-boyfriend—Patrick Zweig (O’Connor). Fueled by a propulsive club beat soundtrack from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, Challengers never drops the ball for a moment, keeping the energy up for the entirety of its 131–minute run time. 

La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher)

Glistening shores, a breeze of ethereality, a vision of poetic tranquillity in the wake of unresolved loss. Alice Rohrwacher’s film La Chimera blends the surreal forces of a dominating nature with the harshness of 1980s rural Italian landscapes. Rohrwacher constructs a world of elegiac beauty within the narrative of Arthur (Josh O’Connor), an English archaeologist who finds himself entangled in the world of Tuscan tombaroli, a group of grave robbers who loot tombs for Etruscan artifacts. This ensemble of diverse characters, reminiscent of the tropes of the Italian comedic tradition commedia dell’arte makes viewers nostalgic for an environment many have never experienced. La Chimera feels like a dream of the past; it acknowledges the spirituality of preserving artistic landscapes and the immateriality of the past, and questions the corrupt nature of the Italian art market. With La Chimera, Rohrwacher cements herself as one of the most important, introspective voices in global contemporary cinema.

Best: Albums

brat by Charli XCX

The euphoric club beats of Charli XCX’s sixth studio album brat fueled this summer with all the messy-cool-girl energy we needed. An album which on the surface appears to be a simple series of pop, electronic, and club songs, is infused with lyrics about grief, generational trauma, and the anxieties of growing into adulthood. Expanding her project even further on the remix album, brat and it’s completely different but also still brat, Charli pushes the boundaries of how far you can remix a song before it is ultimately something different. Both albums are distinct, yet they work in harmony, seemingly talking to each other about Charli’s insecurity with her career trajectory and subsequent discomfort with her newfound mega-stardom.

Cowboy Carter by by Beyoncé

“They used to say I spoke, ‘Too Country’ / And the rejection came, said I wasn’t, ‘Country ‘nough,” Beyoncé chants powerfully on the first track, “American Requiem.” Second in her trilogy of genre-exploring concept albums, Beyoncé recalls her Texan roots in Cowboy Carter as an exploration of the intentional erasure of Black presence in the history of American country music. She explores the historical complexities of the country genre as a product of early African-American blues music, grappling with her place in the dialogue of contemporary popular music. A masterclass in sampling and vocal performance, Cowboy Carter is a monumental work that showcases Beyoncé’s skill in crafting musical worlds, proving the 2020s are the neo-renaissance of her career.

Worst: Pop Culture

Raygun at the Summer Olympics in Paris

On Nov. 6, infamous Olympic breakdancer Rachael Gunn, also known by the moniker Raygun, announced that she would no longer compete in professional breaking following the onset of criticism for her performance at the Paris Olympics—and it’s for the best. If she wants to call her comedic gesticulations a form of personal expression, then I will be holding space for her journey. But I don’t want to see it on the Olympic stage in competition with the impressive athleticism and fluid movement of her B-Girl peers. This summer marked breakdancing’s debut on the Olympic Stage, but Raygun’s televised contortions overshadowed the monumental occasion. The internet is attributing her with discrediting the nature of the sport, citing her as a reason for its non-inclusion in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. Though this has been falsified, her impact is clear: Raygun has made a mockery of and worsened the odds of breaking—which already has a lengthy, controversial history of its consideration as a sport—to circulate in the dominant culture of sports.

Worst: Film

Worst It Ends with Us (Justin Baldoni)

It, in fact, does not end with us; it simply needs to end. Flowers and candy may go together, but flowers and domestic violence (DV) do not. It Ends with Us shamelessly glosses over the significance of DV victims, failing to give it the consideration and attention that it warrants. This was the beginning of a long line of poor choices, ending with Blake Lively choosing to promote her haircare line alongside a film in which her hair looks as frayed as the patience of her fans. Beyond the plot’s lack of awareness, the production quality was equally disappointing, which perhaps should have been taken as a sign to end production. Blake Lively promoted the film with the phrase: “Grab your friends, wear your florals, and head out to see it!” Apparently, It ends with ignorance. 

Worst: Albums

143 (Katy Perry)

143 is such a flop that it’s barely notable enough to be infamous. The epitome of mediocrity, it wouldn’t even warrant mention if not for its tendency towards controversy. The empowerment she hoped to express with “Woman’s World” is immaterial in light of her collaboration with producer/songwriter Dr. Luke. Bringing someone Kesha sued for sexual assault to co-write a song about women’s empowerment is as is as tactless as the track is tuneless. Her intentions are muddy, expressing the desire to touch on significant topics and simultaneously just create something fun. The album screams of apathy, drowning out Perry’s vocals, and her half-hearted attempts at feminism resulted in an album of “meh.”