Everyone We Couldn’t Escape in 2018
Credit to Author: VICE Staff| Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2018 18:32:04 +0000
In the cursed year of 2018, big names made their own rules. From film to politics, to music and fashion, the people at the center of the biggest cultural phenomenons were setting a new standard with their unapologetic approaches, calling out the government’s bullshit, changing the the pop game with a single “Thank U, Next,” or igniting our confused sensual desires with a google eyed dance.
These people were inescapable, for better or for worse, defining our 2018 and shaping the cultural zeitgeist in a way that will likely ring through 2019. They’re not in order of importance or anything so don’t @ us. Chill.
Drake
Drake has been taking over our listening devices of choice now for nearly 10 years. Every year since “Best I Ever Had” dropped way back in February of 09 it seems like Drizzy aka Champagne Papi aka Adonis’s Dad has made it his mission to give us the song of the summer, winter, spring, and fall. 2018 was no different, with the swole rap God gifting dance floors and lit ass car rides to the 7-11 with “God’s Plan,” “In My Feelings,” “I’m Upset,” “Nice for What,” and whatever other cut from Scorpion got your haunches rockin’. He could’ve continued on his day, blessing the timeline with shirtless selfies but instead he, with a heavy assist from Pulitzer Prize-deserving investigative reporter Pusha T, gave us one of the best, most dirtiest rap beefs of all time. A rap beef so messy we found out government name Aubrey Drake Graham has a secret son! The tea, my God! Oh and he also beefed with Kanye (twice), and maybe possibly dated a teenager. I feel like there was another thing. What was it? Oh yeah! A tour that included a Ferrari floating over the audience. Dude stayed busy. -Alex Zaragoza
Ariana Grande
Ariana Grande has gotten exponentially more famous in 2018, for some really cool reasons and some really sad ones. Let’s start with the crappy things: in May 2017, a terrorist targeted the Manchester, England, stop on her Dangerous Woman tour and turned the happiest day of many young fans’ lives into something horrific. Grande retreated for a while to cope with the trauma. But in 2018 she was back in the limelight, going through a breakup with Mac Miller in the spring, getting engaged to Pete Davidson and releasing Sweetener, one of the best albums of the year, in the summer. When Miller died of an overdose in September, Grande was forced to publicly mourn all over again and endure trolls who blamed her for her ex’s substance abuse. Her relationship with Davidson also dissolved as quickly as it had materialized. But out of the ashes of the pain and heartbreak, Grande gave the world “Thank U, Next,” an anthem of emotional maturity and empowerment that has wormed its way into our collective psyche and is certainly a contender for song of the year. Grande has weathered a few storms, but she’s been a figure of resilience and maturity. Plus, she happens to be talented as hell. 2018 has certainly been the year of Ariana Grande, for reasons good and bad, but I’d say that looking back at everything and taking it all into consideration, she’s coming out on top. -Kara Weisenstein
Janelle Monae
If there’s one moment that summarizes Janelle Monae’s 2018 it’s the photo of her wearing pants shaped like a vagina in her “Pink” music video as her rumored girlfriend at the time, actress Tessa Thompson, peaks her head through them, visually acting as her pants’ clitoris. She pretends to rub Thompson’s head and spread open the “lips” of her vagina pants just because, well, they’ve already gone this far with it. Monae was literally doing anything she wanted this year. After coming out as queer in April’s Rolling Stone, saying she’s “a free ass motherfucker,” her visual album Dirty Computer focused on her sexual identity and took shots at the Trump administration’s attacks on the LGBTQ community. Despite not having advertised her sexuality much in her work beforehand, leaning into the conversation in 2018 gave her project a personal urgency and a political timeliness that was truly one for the books. She also continued to be a voice for feminism, giving the only #MeToo-related speech at the 2018 Grammys. And her iconic fashion somehow continued to evolve to new heights at the Black Panther premier and The Met Gala with more afrofuturistic elegance. If she can bring more of that boss energy from her “Django Jane” music video into 2019, next year promises to be just as exciting. -Taylor Hosking
Lady Gaga
We get it, Lady Gaga. You’re talented. Very, very talented. We already knew that, but then you decided to cement it with a howling HAAAAAAAA AH AH AH AHHHHH AHHHHHH HAAA AHH HAAA in A Star is Born. No wonder Bradley Cooper is obsessed. Just take your Golden Globe and Oscar already. -Alex Zaragoza
Amandla Stenberg
Watching Amandla Stenberg’s ascendency into a young A-lister has been absolutely exhilarating. From seeing her years ago in Hunger Games, as the quiet but brilliant girl from District 11 who dies in Katniss’s arms, immediately it was clear she was someone to watch, a kind of actress who could perform emotional complexity without ever making you feel alienated. Stenberg brought these strengths with her as the lead of Everything, Everything, the movie adaptation of Nicola Yoon’s best-selling YA romance—a hallmark kind of role in a world that only now seems to understand that interracial relationships are the mainstream, and that teens want films that reflect the world around them. It’s about time another young black woman was afforded the kind of fame that a more traditional (a.k.a. white) heroine is afforded. She also demonstrates a deep understanding of the power of the media and the optics of racial inequality and solidarity—with a cameo in Beyoncé’s “Lemonade” and her performance as the leading actress in The Hate U Give, a film adaptation of Angie Thomas’s YA novel about police shootings and the way our police state demonizes black bodies. Her rendition of Starr Carter stays with you long after the movie is over. I can’t wait to see where her career takes her. -Nicole Clark
Rihanna
She told us she was a savage! Rihanna has somehow gotten away with ignoring our collective temper tantrum about when her next album is coming and distracted us with epic new projects. Riri seamlessly followed up taking over the beauty industry in 2017 with Fenty Beauty line by launching her lingerie line Savage X Fenty in 2018. The line has been celebrated not just for its sensual and fun designs, but its inclusive sizing and models. That’s something Victoria’s Secret CMO Ed Rezek, who made a statement against using plus size or transgender models in the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, could learn from. Her NYFW Savage show featured curvy women, much like the models on her site, and even a pregnant Slick Woods who went into labor backstage. She’s sent her clothing to transgender icons like Pose breakout star MJ Rodriguez and decided against hosting a trans-specific casting call to respect models’ privacy. After hitting the big screen in Oceans 8, she’s kept the party rolling, shooting an upcoming movie with Childish Gambino. And to top it all off, even without the music we still got to soak in some of her no bullshit attitude. A viral photo of her fully doing the angry-girlfriend-finger-point rant reminded us to keep that same energy. And she literally sent President Trump a cease and desist letter for playing her music at one of his rallies. It can’t get much better than that. -Taylor Hosking
Sandra Oh
Sandra Oh owned this year for so many reasons: A historic Emmy nomination as a lead actress in a drama series (for BBC America’s Killing Eve) and a historic casting as co-host of the Golden Globes. These accolades are embarrassingly overdo for a woman who practically ruled primetime for 10 years as Dr. Cristina Yang on Grey’s Anatomy. She was one of the few Asian women to have had such a prominent role on television, and her accolades in 2018 remind us how terribly behind Hollywood is in matters of representation and parity. It’s ridiculous that it took so long for Oh to have her day, but even more ridiculous that it took so long for these respective prestigious awards shows to nominate an Asian woman or choose an Asian American person as a host. For these reasons, and for the blinding obviousness of her talent, Oh has been in the news all year. Killing Eve season 2 will arrive in the spring, so there’s definitely more Oh on the way. -Nicole Clark
Hayley Kiyoko
Alongside Janelle Monáe and Kehlani, Hayley Kiyoko was a de facto pop queen of 20gayteen. Her album Expectations is a perfect etching of the modern relationship—the chase, the flirtation, the confusion, the heartbreak—except this time it’s unabashedly about being a woman in love with women. Kiyoko is no stranger to the music scene. Do any of you remember the Disney Channel Original Movie Lemonade Mouth? Let me jog your memory: The half-Asian punk girl with an asymetrical bob who made you realize you were queer. Like any Disney Channel star worth her salt, she attempted a music career with wobbly success. Her breakout wasn’t until 2015, when she fully embraced her sexuality and released the music video “Girls Like Girls,” which follows a best friendship that blossoms into love. Her music videos are all narratively driven, and portray the intensities of young love in ways I’ve never seen before in this medium. She understands how to bottle that feeling of uncertainness and longing for reciprocation, and the ways the intimacies of female friendship make it hard to determine whether attraction is mutual. Kiyoko’s acting and dancing background serve her as the front woman to all of these videos—she can light up a dance floor and wear the hell out of a Hawaiian shirt. When she finally kisses Kehlani in “What I Need,” I felt my body jump out of itself. Bless 2018 for Hayley Kiyoko, our Lesbian Jesus. -Nicole Clark
Gritty
2018 called for an unlikely hero, and we got one in the form of a chaotically beautiful mascot—Gritty. For whatever reason, the Philadelphia Flyers mascot transcended beyond the hockey world and found a place in the hearts of internet users everywhere, with his oft-changing belly button and half-secret Marxism. Gritty wasn’t the hero we needed in 2018, but he was the one we deserved. -Eve Peyser
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This article originally appeared on VICE US.