HEROES

Orcas 

According to the Chinese zodiac, 2023 was the year of the rabbit – but it’s clear that 2023 has really been the year of the orca. Killer whales have been attacking boats around the world all year, mainly targeting sailboats and yachts. Some even thought orcas were behind the implosion of the Titan submersible and the deaths of its billionaire passengers. With their indomitable anti-capitalist spirit, orcas have well and truly earned their place on this list. Here’s hoping the orca revolution is nigh. (SS)

Miss Lady Kay

With her impeccable comic timing, eccentric turns of phrase and soothing delivery, Lady Miss Kay is the heroine we need in these troubled times; she’s a TikTok preacher dishing out tough love and almost mystical pearls of wisdom. She came to my attention earlier this year with a viral video, in which she starts out by offering advice to young trans women before wandering off into a surreal, stream-of-consciousness monologue about the importance of food – immediately I knew I was in the presence of greatness. As well as being funny and charismatic, she consistently uses her platform for good, pointing her followers to educational resources about issues like Palestine liberation and the ‘Land Back’ movement in the US. Save us, Lady Miss Kay! (JG)

@kay_wow

T girl wisdom

♬ original sound - Lady Miss Kay

The Scarborough walrus

In a culture that encourages us to feel shame about expressing our sexuality, the Wanking Walrus modelled a more emancipatory way of living. That’s not to say we should all just whip out our genitals and start masturbating in public, but we could learn a lot from his courageous refusal to be self-conscious, even as a crowd of people gathered around to film and jeer at him. And while his presence was deemed disruptive by the heartless bigwigs and prudish curtain-twitches at the local council, I’d bet he provided far more joy to the people of Scarborough than a fireworks display ever would. (JG)

The girl who cried about her nine-to-five

Back in October, 21-year-old Brielle Asero went viral after making a TikTok venting about the stresses of adjusting to nine-to-five life. “I don’t have time to do anything,” she said. The nine-to-five schedule is crazy [...] How do you have friends? How do you have time to meet a guy?”. Asero made the grave mistake of being a young woman with an opinion on the internet and people rushed to pour scorn on her, cruelly mocking her struggle to get to grips with spending 90 per cent of her waking hours at work. But why was everyone booing her? She’s right!!! Squeezing life admin, cooking, cleaning, exercising, socialising, dating, and hobbies into three paltry hours in the evening is miserable and I’m glad she said so. Bring on the four-day week! (SS)

@brielleybelly123

im also getting sick leave me alone im emotional ok i feel 12 and im scared of not having time to live

♬ original sound - BRIELLE

Martin and Francesca Scorsese

Francesca Scorsese has done more for society than the US army, the UK army, Rishi Sunak and Joe Biden combined when she decided to bless our screens with TikTok videos of Marty, our white boy of the century. Known for his incredible and impassioned filmography, we witnessed Marty be a big goofball, play with his beautiful dog Oscar and guess the meaning of the word “slay”. They also have the most beautiful and wholesome relationship. It brings tears to my eyes! We love you, Marty and Franny x (HJ)

@francescascorsese He lowkey slayed. #fyp #martinscorsese #dadsoftiktok #dadguesses ♬ original sound - Francesca

Gwyneth Paltrow

Gwyneth Paltrow looks like the kind of person who listens to freak folk. Jessica Pratt, Vashti Bunyan, etc. She’s just a little freak, you know? From Goop and the fact her daughter’s name is Apple, to her infamous ski accident trail this year, which gave us the iconic line “well, I lost half a day’s skiing” and has now been turned into a musical. I need to have a peek into her mind. She’s a genius. (HJ)

Daniel Khalife

Fugitive, former soldier and Gen-Z heartthrob Daniel Khalife was originally imprisoned under terrorism legislation, having planted a fake bomb in the army barracks where he worked. Your honour, I believe that calling this “terrorism” is a bit of a stretch, and submit that it would be better described as a bit of harmless fun. I don’t know what the ideological motivation behind it was, so forgive me if it turns out to be problematic – but considering that he’s handsome, and therefore a virtuous person, it can’t have been anything that bad. Anyway, in our hearts we can choose to believe that Khalife was driven to carry out these hi-jinks by whatever cause we want: radical Third Worldism, anti-ULEZ extremism, a People’s Vote to reverse Brexit – you name it. When Khalife escaped, he came to embody a generation’s yearning for freedom – and he was hot! For a few precious days, our hearts soared every time the police announced he was still on the lam, until he was sadly recaptured and the dream was over. He is back behind bars…. for now 😉🙏 (JG)

Phoebe Plummer

22-year-old Phoebe Plummer, photographed here in Dazed, first made headlines back in late 2022 after they threw soup at Van Gogh’s Sunflowers at the National Gallery as part of a protest organised by climate justice group Just Stop Oil. They’ve admirably continued protesting against new oil and gas throughout 2023, and in November they were jailed for six months for taking part in a slow march protest. It doesn’t get more heroic than that. (SS)

Captain Tom’s daughter

The archetype of The Scammer is now passé, best left to the think-pieces and Instragram reels of 2018, and I won’t praise Hannah Ingram-Moore on that basis: there is nothing “mother” about mismanaging a charity (allegedly) nor does defying local planning regulations make one a diva. But she has done us all a favour. With all due respect to Captain Tom the person, he became an avatar for British patriotism at its most jingoistic – a kind of fascist demi-God, a patron saint for Daily Mail readers. And if you voiced even the mildest criticism of this cultural phenomenon, you were liable to be hounded by the right-wing press, prosecuted for treason or publicly sacrificed in a Wicker Man-style ritual. That’s what it felt like, to me. By puncturing this mythos and proving the haters right, Hannah Ingram-Moore has fired an arrow straight through the heart of the nation’s psyche, dealing a possibly fatal blow to the project of British nationalism, and forestalling – most likely forever – the production of a Captain Tom biopic. And if that doesn’t make her worthy of being ironically stanned, what the hell would? (JG)

Bed bugs

These cute little parasitic insects have gotten a bad reputation this year. While they came from France (gag), they did not deserve the slander they received. Are they difficult to get rid of? Yes. Do they make your skin itchy and cause painful swelling? Also yes. But they’ve also done a lot of good. The bed bug scare of 2023 taught people to become a lot more aware of the importance of changing their outside clothes after sitting on the tube or bus before coming home, getting into bed or sitting on their couch. This is a big win for girlies who are always banging on about how germs cling to clothes (me). Bed bugs, I salute you for your service. (HJ)

VILLAINS

Elon Musk

Elon Musk has always been a boring, annoying and unfunny man, but this year he has passed a threshold and become a genuinely quite evil one. While his shift to the right has been a years-long process, he’s now at the point of regularly interacting with unabashedly white supremacist accounts on Twitter, ranting about trans people and promoting far-right, antisemitic conspiracy theories, which is troubling behaviour from the richest man in the world. Let’s hope that he gets visited by three spirits on Christmas Eve (how about Sylvia Rivera, Hannah Arendt and James Baldwin?), but instead of teaching him the error of his ways and the true meaning of the yuletide season, they just beat him up. (JG)

People called ‘Sam’

The Sam community just couldn’t stop disgracing itself in 2023. Sam Levinson was called out for creating a toxic environment on the set of Euphoria, while Sam Bankman-Fried was prosecuted for running a billion-dollar crypto-scam. As for Sam Altman, I didn’t really follow the OpenAI saga but I needed another Sam to make this caption work and, being a Silicon Valley CEO,  it’s probably safe to assume he’s an unsavory character. And who could forget Uncle Sam, an enduring symbol of the most evil empire in human history? If this is your name, it might be time to rebrand as Sammy. (JG)

George Santos

There’s been a terrible misunderstanding: George Santos appears to have noticed that people on the internet were laughing at him and arrived at the conclusion that this is because he’s funny. And he really, really isn’t. We’ve had our fun, but the schtick has worn thin, and it’s time to leave this racist, anti-trans, anti-Palestinian loser in 2023. (JG)

Bryan Johnson

The mega-rich will always be evil, but Bryan Johnson has to be one of the most sinister multi-millionaires of 2023. It doesn’t really get much more ‘cartoon villain-y’ than draining blood from your teenage son and injecting yourself with it in a bid to achieve eternal youth. I am so scared of this man x (SS)

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Men

Men are always villains but they really flopped harder than ever this year. From Matty Healy mocking Ice Spice, to Joe Jonas getting his spin doctors to make Sophie Turner look like a bad mother, to Matt Rife making fatphobic jokes and mocking an OnlyFans creator, to Laurence Fox making appalling, sexist comments about Ava Evans… the list goes on. Let’s leave men in 2023 ❤️ (SS)

Ozempic

Ozempic went mainstream this year, with Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk raking in record profits after word spread about Ozempic’s potency as a weight loss drug. But Ozempic is no quick fix – side effects can include nausea, diarrhoea, dizziness, constipation, and in rare cases, renal failure, pancreatitis and intestinal obstruction. And in any case, isn’t it high time society stopped being so obsessed with thinness? Fortunately, as more research is done into the drug’s unpleasant side effects, it seems likely the Ozempic craze will be consigned to the dustbin of history soon – and good riddance! (SS)

All celebrities! Especially billionaire ones!

The biggest lame-o losers of the year are celebrities. As the world descends further into crisis, year after year, it becomes more apparent that these people, especially the billionaires, are self-serving, individualistic assholes. This is the very nature of celebrity. Intrinsically interlinked with capitalism, they will always care about profit over people, every time. It is time to divest in celebrity. (HJ)

“I Am Kenough” hoodies 

Ryan Gosling, I love you so much. If you stumble upon this, look away. Anyone with a Kenough jumper should go to jail. If you see anyone wearing those hoodies, run in the other direction. They’re so ugly and annoying. I’m so sorry. It was funny for about five minutes, and then it got very millennial. Almost as millennial as Harry Potter. (HJ)

Sofia Coppola

Now, this is a contentious one. Sofia Coppola, beloved for her filmmaking and exploration of (white) girlhood, longing and love, inspires many young women to take up filmmaking, and for that, I give her credit. However, I can not forgive her for how boring Priscilla is. Boring, boring, boring. (HJ)