2011

All the Year-End Listicles We Didn't Get Around to Writing in 2011

Maureen O'Connor · 12/30/11 01:45PM

The year-end listicle is a stressful affair. It's important: You are defining a moment in history. It's hard: You have to remember stuff that happened twelve whole months ago, which is multiple millennia in internet years. Finally, it has a strict deadline: If you procrastinate, then the work you've done will be rendered completely irrelevant at the stroke of midnight on January 1st.

The Year in Lies

John Cook · 12/29/11 02:19PM

Lies: They travel halfway round the world before the truth gets its boots on. If you don't tell them, you never have to remember anything. Ask me no questions and I won't tell you any. The year that now comes to an end was, like all years, riddled with them. Grand lies and small ones, grave ones and frivolous ones, true ones and false ones—check that. They were all false. Here is a list of some of them that really caught my attention.

The Best Instant Celebrities of 2011

Adrian Chen · 12/28/11 02:00PM

2011 was a great year for instafame. With cameras and Twitter users providing blanket coverage of each big news story, the whole world became a potential micro-celebrity. Let's take some time to remember 2011's best flash-in-the-pan celebrities, and then forget about them, forever.

All the Viral Videos of the Year in Two Minutes

Matt Toder · 12/28/11 01:00PM

2011 offered us an amazing array of viral videos, ephemeral clips whose popularity was sometimes born out of mockery, sometimes out of amazement, and sometimes out of humor. Whether it was a woman falling into a fountain, an incredible time lapse piece, or the inescapable Rebecca Black, all of them found a way to draw millions of eyes. Here are some of the videos that kept the web spinning this year.

The Most Heroic Gawker Characters of 2011

Maureen O'Connor · 12/27/11 11:32AM

We loathe a lot of people here at Gawker, mostly because we recognize that humanity is irreversibly doomed and the future holds nothing but Kim Kardashian dancing in six-inch stilettos on the graves of the poor. (Silver lining: Well-aerated grave grass.)

Most Loathsome Gawker Characters of 2011

Hamilton Nolan · 12/27/11 11:00AM

Many were loathed in 2011; these are the ones we call our own. This is not a list of the world's most loathsome characters. This is (with apologies to the NY Press) a list of Gawker's most loathsome characters. Learn them. Love them. Loathe them.

The Year in Television in Under Four Minutes

Matt Toder · 12/26/11 12:00PM

This year, television gave us some incredible moments, from Charlie Sheen's on-camera meltdown to Oprah and Regis stepping off the stage to, the year offered plenty of highlights and lowlights. This compilation video brings them everything together: the hilarious residents of Pawnee, Indiana and the half-faced drug kingpins of Albuquerque, New Mexico, Christine O'Donnell walking off Piers Morgan's show and Louis CK sucking up to Dane Cook. If you weren't watching enough TV this year, here are all the moments people were talking about and all the spoilers you were warned about (including a NSFW clip near the end).

The Most Popular Gawker Posts of 2011

Gawker Staff · 12/23/11 06:00PM

2011 has been quite a year, and there has been lots of news, scoops, leaks, exclusives, scandals, internet explosions, sexts, and one very very famous dead guy. So, here are the most-read posts on Gawker for the entire year—take a moment to remember what passed.

This Guy Knows How to Throw a Yo-Yo

Lauri Apple · 10/03/11 07:49AM

Over the weekend the city of Chico, California hosted the U.S. National Yo-Yo Championships, just like it does every year, and there were winners! Nimble, lightning-fast winners, most of whom were male. In fact, only one woman competed in this year's contest: 19-year-old Ann Connolly, who won the "Best Girl Player" award. WTF, ladies? Stop having babies and get cracking on your Rock the Babies. Stop sleeping and start practicing your Reverse Sleepers. Let's estrogenize that thing next year.

Is This the End of the World?

Richard Lawson · 01/05/11 04:15PM

The new year has arrived and it is awful, what with bird/fish/crab death, floods, freezing temperatures, and zombie ex-Vice Presidents. So let's just put it all out there and list the reasons why this is already the worst year ever.

Happy New Year!

Jeff Neumann · 01/01/11 08:58AM

[A man performs what could be a Triple Lindy off the 59-foot high Cavour Bridge in Rome, Italy this morning. Image via AP]

End Your 2010 with the Birth of a Tiny Bird

Matt Toder · 12/31/10 09:20AM

It's New Year's Eve, a moment to reflect on the year that's gone by and to make some (sure-to-be-unfulfilled) promises about the one about to arrive. As part of that renewal, here's a tiny bird hatching in someone's hand.