Who Won 2015?

December 24, 2015 8:38 AM

"Beyond that, only one more real rule: Not everyone or everything can make it. Sorry I’m not sorry that I’m not sorry." Rembert Browne, ex-Grantland, now at New York (previously, previously, previously, etc.), unveils the bracket for his epic annual tournament to determine who won the year. Spoiler: the answer in 2015 is (predictably) depressing.

Who Won 2014? (Winner: Footage.)
Who Won 2013? (Winner: Cultural Appropriation.)
Who Won 2012? (Winner: Knowles-Thronedashian.)
Who Won 2011? (Winner: Twitter.)

posted by How the runs scored (38 comments total)

It's a knockdown, drag-out featuring MY BROWSER vs. ALL THE CRAP ON THAT PAGE
posted by Wolfdog at 8:47 AM on December 24, 2015 [25 favorites]

GREAT POST, I'm so glad he found a host for the annual bracket. Rembert forever.
posted by everybody had matching towels at 8:48 AM on December 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

It's Trump, isn't. I promise I will RTFA. But it's gotta be right?
posted by Diablevert at 8:49 AM on December 24, 2015

> It's Trump, isn't. I promise I will RTFA. But it's gotta be right?

It's more complicated and more sad than that.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 8:51 AM on December 24, 2015 [6 favorites]

We have to get together and organize behind a proven winner for 2016. A leader we can all agree on. A lovable outsider with original ideas, a guy who may look a bit scruffy and unconventional from the outside but who has a heart of gold and great plans for leading America and the world to a better place.

I refer, of course, to CLARENCE BEEFTANK.

Trump? Trump'll be BEEFTANK'd. Hate? Hate'll be BEEFTANK'd.

Today... today. at the edge of our hope. at the end of our time. we have chosen to believe not only in ourselves but in CLARENCE BEEFTANK. Today there is not a man or woman in here will stand alone, not today. Today, we will face the monsters that our at our door and bring a five foot tall perfectly round solid ball of muscle and football talent with a degree in poetry and a gpa of reddish-gray to them. Today, we are CANCELING THE HATEPOCOLYPSE.

and then we are having a nice glass of milks.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 9:06 AM on December 24, 2015 [16 favorites]

When Trump beats out Love in the first round, it's really a profound statement on the times we live in; as is the Final.

Beyond that, I'm somewhat amazed at how little I was aware of some of the pop culture stuff in the article. Maybe I'm getting old.
posted by nubs at 9:08 AM on December 24, 2015 [3 favorites]

The Deceased: Still not included. This rule will never change. Even in 2015, dying is still not winning. Sorry, Cecil. Sorry, Grantland.

That's some icy shade that is.
posted by chavenet at 9:11 AM on December 24, 2015 [5 favorites]

still though this is a pretty good bracket. There's enough of an arc that I don't actually feel comfortable straight out spoiling it for people who haven't read it. But there's a storyline to it; we think that the competitor who one by one kills all our best hopes and dreams — who destroys both love and Hamilton, who would have taken down Black Twitter if he could have gotten to it — is the final monster, but then comes the twist at the end and you realize that the guy we thought was the final boss monster is just a patsy. And suddenly, its path cleared, the real enemy reveals itself in its fullness.

The plot of this bracket on the whole resembles the plot of one of the old Final Fantasy games, just instead of being set in a world filled with magic and wonder and steampunk airships and teenage crush drama, where ultimately good wins out over evil, it's just set in a relentless shit-tornado of a year. And also, unlike in the old Final Fantasy games, Kefka wins.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 9:24 AM on December 24, 2015 [17 favorites]

You Can't Tip a Buick: " > It's Trump, isn't. I promise I will RTFA. But it's gotta be right?

It's more complicated and more sad than that."

Trump is just a player on the winning team.
posted by double block and bleed at 9:28 AM on December 24, 2015 [8 favorites]

> blah blah blah blah Kefka.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 9:24 AM on December 24 [+] [!]

also and unrelatedly I just realized who Martin Shkreli reminds me of.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 9:32 AM on December 24, 2015 [3 favorites]

Beyond that, I'm somewhat amazed at how little I was aware of some of the pop culture stuff in the article. Maybe I'm getting old.

Indeed. WTF is "dabbing?"

Hate never goes out of style, so no gray-bafflement there.
posted by notyou at 9:33 AM on December 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

And I’m not [doing a Who Lost bracket] this year either — mainly because the answer to “who lost” is the neurosurgeons lobby and there is no close second, but I digress.

Worth reading for this sentence alone.
posted by moss at 9:36 AM on December 24, 2015 [2 favorites]

Next years winners: ennui and dread.
posted by blue_beetle at 9:39 AM on December 24, 2015 [3 favorites]

Another thread with an article that talks about Hamilton! #YAYHAMLET
posted by matildaben at 10:27 AM on December 24, 2015 [3 favorites]

I knew it had to be over when it came down to Trump vs. Hamilton.

Sit down, Donald, you fat mother—

(article loses two points for not mentioning Hercules Mulligan)
posted by zachlipton at 10:37 AM on December 24, 2015 [2 favorites]

I hit spacebar to scroll down and instead it loaded three other articles on the site in rapid succession. Does anyone have a mirror?
posted by 4th number at 10:42 AM on December 24, 2015

I'm not R'ingTFA; I already know this was a shitty year, and it's not me or anyone like me who won it. On to the next probably-just-as-shitty year.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 10:50 AM on December 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

I tried to read it, but the js on that page just made things randomly jump all the time. Someone needs to fire a dev team.
posted by idiopath at 11:06 AM on December 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

Apparently 25 years old is the year where you are finally an old man and pop culture ceases to matter to you.

Except for Donald Trump, who is an unavoidable Culture Demon that I hope we can laugh at a decade from now. Partly in the sense that I hope we're still around a decade from now, despite his best efforts.
posted by rorgy at 11:08 AM on December 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

This was mentioned to me in a couple of other contexts but I thought it probably wasn't really worth reading. Here, though, I take recommendations more seriously so I read it and I'm glad I did. I found out both more entertaining and more thoughtful than I had anticipated. Thanks, how the runs scored, for giving me that fpp nudge!
posted by janey47 at 11:10 AM on December 24, 2015

Not giving a shit about pop culture any more is one of the greatest blessings of middle age.
posted by briank at 11:14 AM on December 24, 2015 [4 favorites]

WTF is "dabbing?"

I can only assume: Dabney Coleman cosplay.
posted by Atom Eyes at 11:57 AM on December 24, 2015 [3 favorites]

Next years winners: ennui and dread

I dunno, I have fear and trembling in the office pool. Jim in payroll already picked sickness into death, so that's what I was left with.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 11:58 AM on December 24, 2015 [3 favorites]

And also, unlike in the old Final Fantasy games, Kefka wins.

Kefka kinda does win, though. He loses eventually, but not before splo-ing things up real good, scattering all your friends and turning the planet into a brownish wasteland of sidequests and depressing overworld music.

I hold out hope that in the second half of the 2010s we can get our shit together and organize that complicated three-party attack on the final tower. Things won't get better, but maybe they'll stop getting worse.
posted by Metroid Baby at 12:00 PM on December 24, 2015 [2 favorites]

Next years winners: ennui and dread

ennui conquers all.
posted by ennui.bz at 12:06 PM on December 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

I'm happy to see the Grantland talent landing on their feet (though I guess we knew Browne had a job lined up even before before they announced the closure of the site).
posted by atoxyl at 12:07 PM on December 24, 2015

> I hold out hope that in the second half of the 2010s we can get our shit together and organize that complicated three-party attack on the final tower. Things won't get better, but maybe they'll stop getting worse.
posted by Metroid Baby at 12:00 PM on December 24 [1 favorite −] Favorite added! [!]

I am absolutely going to refer to this the next time I find myself sitting in on a socialist meeting. "Don't think of it as a Popular Front. Think of it as a complicated three-party attack on the final tower."
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 12:09 PM on December 24, 2015

Haha I wish I could do this with my LinkedIn.
posted by atoxyl at 12:13 PM on December 24, 2015 [2 favorites]

So I have no idea who Steph Curry is or what sport he's in or what he was talking about at that press conference, but I'm suddenly a huge fan of him and his daughter.
posted by effbot at 12:18 PM on December 24, 2015 [2 favorites]

Next years winners: ennui and dread

In keeping with the holiday theme, Ignorance and Want
posted by the man of twists and turns at 12:46 PM on December 24, 2015 [2 favorites]

It's not like I ever thought hate wouldn't be a major force in the world, but in 2008, right after Obama won, if you'd told me how fucking thoroughly hate would be winning in 2015, I would have been stunned. The number of public YouTube beheadings, the millions of humans calling for deportations of refugees, and Donald Fucking Trump leading the charge, shit, I would have asked my wife to abort her 2 pregnancies since then and would have killed myself. 2015 was one shitty year. Probably not the shittiest in history, but it seems undeniable that 2015 is a sure signal that one of next twenty years is sure to be the worst in history. Surprisingly, gay marriage, Drake, and Kaitlin Jenner ain't gonna keep us from torturing and killing each other into extinction.

Fuck off 2015, and merry Christmas everyone.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 1:17 PM on December 24, 2015 [2 favorites]

Yes, my cornflakes, they are thoroughly soaked with urine
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 1:23 PM on December 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

I really enjoyed reading this, thanks for posting. I didn't really know Rembert Browne before but I'm looking forward to reading more of him.
posted by aka burlap at 2:30 PM on December 24, 2015

The percentage of the US population who support trump or Cruz is not very large.

Stats indicate we in the west are more tolerant and less violent than ever before. Until next year, which will be even better.

We're winning. Not fast enough, I know. But we are winning.
posted by persona au gratin at 3:03 PM on December 24, 2015 [2 favorites]

I dream of a day when we can all unite and in one strong clear voice together announce, without shame or fear or guilt or hesitation:

FUCK 2015!
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 3:54 PM on December 24, 2015 [2 favorites]

>It's not like I ever thought hate wouldn't be a major force in the world, but in 2008, right after Obama won, if you'd told me how fucking thoroughly hate would be winning in 2015, I would have been stunned.

So much this. I was a bit jaded myself but I still bought into the hope-and-change ticket pretty deeply, it was impossible not to after eight years of Bush. As the results came in there were young people literally dancing in the streets in my Southeast Portland neighborhood and I'm not too proud to admit that I was right there with them, goofy grin on my face and all. It felt like things couldn't help but get better and might just get a hell of a lot better. It felt like a great big fuck-you to the remnants of racism in America, at least.

But apparently American racists and other purveyors of mindless hatred really only needed someone to polarize against; when Obama won it was like someone kicked over a rock and all manner of creepy festering shit came crawling out. And, America being America, of course one of the biggest pieces of creepy festering racist shit is now the Republican frontrunner. Of course he is.

Part of me wonders if we might have averted or at least slowed the hatepocalypse if anyone other than Obama had won. But it's probably only my white privilege that kept me from seeing how bad it really was pre-2008, so maybe it's better that Obama's election brought at least some elements of American racism front-and-center so we could face it and deal with it.

A lot of good happened in 2015. I hope 2015 is remembered for being a landmark year for marriage equality at least, and there were a lot of other moments large and small to be proud of and to remember fondly. But there was so much hatred and awfulness of every stripe, everywhere, and we've become so inured to it that 2016 can't help but be as bad or worse. Hatred definitely won 2015 and it's got a solid headstart on 2016.

[edit: and on that happy note, merry Xmas everybody.]
posted by Two unicycles and some duct tape at 5:29 PM on December 24, 2015 [3 favorites]

Man, I hate to say it, but is there a multipage link for that article? All the embedded GIFs and videos make it close to literally unreadable on a tablet: The browser will blank out and reload after scrolling a couple screens.
posted by ardgedee at 6:22 PM on December 24, 2015 [2 favorites]

Come on. David Cameron and his dead pig won 2015.
posted by floatboth at 12:22 PM on December 25, 2015