2024 in review

#Yearly Wrapup

2024 felt more like a proper year than the last.

Amol Rajan casually dropped the sickest sample known to man, internet rapper Viper got arrested for kidnapping, then an ITV drama brought the Post Office Horizon scandal to the front of public consciousness making us all wish there were TV dramas about everything else wrong with the country.

Willy’s Chocolate Experience took the world by storm with how hilariously abysmal it was. It taught people to avoid AI-Generated rubbish until they didn’t. Formerly Twitter went wild over a 20-year old advertising gimmick and for a fortnight every video became an ode to a Chilean beer.

Lost Media fans rejoiced as Ulterior Motives was finally discovered in a… Uh. Awkward. On top of that, The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet was finally identified, as well as a sodding Mozart piece of all things.

Also the Northern Lights went wild in May.

At the halfway point, our Prime Minister called a General Election and bottled it, Kien released for the Gameboy Advance, and Cypress Hill finally played with the London Symphony Orchestra. The Crowdstrike failure caused a right kerfuffle and brought a chunk of the world to a standstill, and Donald Trump got an ear piercing. 💅

I don’t really have notes for the rest of the year. Concord released and immediately shut down, a capybara escaped a zoo, Luigi became Nintendo’s most popular character somehow, and there was a new Wallace and Gromit film. That about does it.

Oh, and the felled Sycamore Gap tree shows signs of life. Things can’t be that bad.

In terms of web stuff, there have been better years. Big Tech is still hellbent on enshittification, anything to make a quick buck. AI Slop is inescapable now and has ruined image search. Google are still fighting adblockers, Mozilla is now into advertising, and even NaNoWriMo has jumped on the generative AI bandwagon for some reason.

But despite all of this, it’s worth mentioning that people want the online world to be better.

Cohost unfortunately shut down, but it shown us all that social media can be better for everyone. The indie web is still thriving, community wikis are clawing back at the predatory grip of Fandom, and in response to X going to hell there’s been a mass exodus to Bluesky – whilst I doubt their decentralisation plans and don’t see anything stopping it from becoming Twitter 2.0, it’s certainly a nicer place.

The stats

  • 6 blog posts
  • 11 books read
    • Favourite: The Disaster Artist
  • 17 Films watched
    • Favourite: Eyes Wide Shut
  • 9 TV shows watched
    • Favourite: Ashes to Ashes
  • 13 Games played
    • Favourite: Disco Elysium
  • Favourite song I listened to: Tiger King
  • 8 games I bought on sale then never played
  • 2 hours spent lying on the floor listening to Ultravox’s Vienna
  • 1 time my gay cat caught something
  • 7½ hours spent waiting in A&E only for everything to be okay
  • Word of the year: Desultory

Blog posts wot didn’t make the cut

  • Fiction and Vulnerability – I’m not a writer, but I’d occasionally like to try it. Writing fiction and presenting it to the world (even as a trivial challenge for this blog) feels way more daunting & vulnerable than writing about childhood bullying.
  • The 2024 Election – The Conservatives had nothing to show but decline after 14 years in power and Labour was the only real alternative. Simple as.
  • What’s up with Skeletons? – Exploring why you can put skeletons into any situation without them being out of place. I was hoping to release it on Halloween but I got preoccupied with porting my blog to Hugo and… Meh.

Conclusion

Right, that’s 2024 done with.

For me it’s been an eventful non eventful year. I finally quit a job I was too scared to leave, but familial commitments have left me in an odd position for the time being. While I don’t have the highest hopes for 2025, if I play my cards right it might be the start of a transitional period for my life. Gotta have hope innit.

While I have faltered, this has been the year where I’ve accepted that I should try to be better. I’ve accepted that I can’t give up on my health. I still get overwhelmed by my thoughts and wish I could just give up, but there’s something inside of me worth caring for. Also it turns out that yes, I can lose weight… Just ignore what I put back on over Christmas.

Is there anything I wish for in the future? For things to stop being so annoying Temperance and fortitude ought to be the big one, building up mental endurance would help a lot with navigating life. Add in some self-love, stop the self-deprecation and hey, maybe I can feel great about myself.

I’ll need help in figuring out things about who I really am, and I’ll need to steady myself to face it all. It’s big, it’s scary, but I think I can take on another year.

I’d like to thank my friends for being there for me this year – you know who you are. Thank you for the comfort through the low periods, and laughs through the highs. You’ve managed to keep me sane throughout all of this.

Please be kind to yourself xx

Olive