“I love you, but you are not serious people.”

December 26, 2023 12:38 PM

There’s no better way to emphasize this general feeling than to break down the most important events of 2023 to their molecular level. (Although, as you’re about to see, “important” is a relative term; the word “most” is far more key here.) To recap the language that this year gave us—the seemingly ranch, the rizz, the ice cream yes yes yes—so that we can truly see just how constant, how compelling, and how bizarre our current existence is. Without further ado, these are the 84 sentences that defined 2023. [CW: almost entirely US-focused]
posted by chavenet (63 comments total)

July 11, 2023: “The endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses.” —Anonymous source, Deadline

July 13, 2023: “They stand on the wrong side of history at this very moment, we stand in solidarity in unprecedented unity.” —Fran Drescher, SAG-AFTRA president

To that I would also add Ron Perlman's response: "There's a lot of ways to lose your house. Some of it is financial, some of it is karma. And some of it is figuring out who the fuck said that... and where he fucking lives."
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 1:05 PM on December 26, 2023 [56 favorites]

Metafilter: We know too much, and we understand so little
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:07 PM on December 26, 2023 [10 favorites]

Good lord, Paltrow's skiing accident was this year?? Seems like ages ago.
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:08 PM on December 26, 2023 [4 favorites]

As a non movie goer, or, for that matter, a non television watcher, I find it a bit sad that these are mostly from the movie and entertainment world. Were there no choice sentences from the world of ballet, or the world of poetry. ..Did no religious leader utter any words of wisdom or maybe a military leader?.
posted by Czjewel at 1:11 PM on December 26, 2023 [15 favorites]

Did someone say ice cream gang?
posted by Ice Cream Socialist at 1:16 PM on December 26, 2023 [4 favorites]

Did no religious leader utter any words of wisdom or maybe a military leader

take your pick but I'm not sure any "wisdom" lies on that page.
posted by pwnguin at 1:28 PM on December 26, 2023 [6 favorites]

I find it a bit sad that these are mostly from the movie and entertainment world

It's a list compiled by people who think everything is stupid and who understand they're writing for an audience that agrees that everything is stupid and so they've put together a list designed to confirm to their readers that everything is, indeed, stupid. No one needs to feel any sort of way about it.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 1:35 PM on December 26, 2023 [32 favorites]

This is a list from The Ringer, so of course it’s not going to be about, like war in the Middle East. Just like you wouldn’t go The Financial Times looking for an oral history of NSync.
posted by mbrubeck at 1:35 PM on December 26, 2023 [16 favorites]

I only knew four of these, and I'm embarrassed to say one of them was "Livvy rizzed up Baby Gronk."
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 1:36 PM on December 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

I find it a bit sad that these are mostly from the movie and entertainment world.

The ones that aren't from the sports world, anyway...
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:43 PM on December 26, 2023 [7 favorites]

Hrm, no "Skibidi dop dop dop yes yes"?
posted by Horkus at 1:45 PM on December 26, 2023 [8 favorites]

most of these made no sense and had no explanation.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 1:54 PM on December 26, 2023 [35 favorites]

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who had super strong "is this something I'd have to have a TV to understand" vibes from this.
posted by egypturnash at 1:56 PM on December 26, 2023 [17 favorites]

Is this outbreak of jargon yet another way our 'screaming in outrage and fear' Twenties are a recrudescence and intensification of the Roaring Twenties — or not?
posted by jamjam at 1:57 PM on December 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

made no sense

So, perfectly 2023.
posted by sammyo at 1:57 PM on December 26, 2023 [5 favorites]

Alright, I will fall on this grenade -

Bulgarktonos, please explain the Baby Gronk thing?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:09 PM on December 26, 2023 [5 favorites]

It's a list for "trash monsters, rolling in the heap." The less of it you know, the happier you should be.
Wikipedia says this is Baby Gronk.
posted by pracowity at 2:20 PM on December 26, 2023 [3 favorites]

i do like the idea of naming this decade the Screaming Twenties tho
posted by glonous keming at 2:44 PM on December 26, 2023 [12 favorites]

I have a TV and I don't understand the majority of these.
posted by SoberHighland at 2:47 PM on December 26, 2023 [5 favorites]

you wouldn’t go The Financial Times looking for an oral history of NSync.

Financial Times: 'Pop fans of a certain vintage may remember Lance Bass, singer with NSYNC, the 1990s boyband famed for the hit “I Want You Back” and for their copious use of hair gel (and also for launching the career of Justin Timberlake). What they may not recall is that Bass is also a Russian-trained cosmonaut, having gone through training in Star City outside Moscow during a break from the band. In the end, Bass never got to go into space, but his obsession with the stories of those who have remains undimmed.'
posted by mittens at 2:48 PM on December 26, 2023 [25 favorites]

you wouldn’t go The Financial Times looking for an oral history of NSync.

Financial Times: 'Pop fans of a certain vintage may remember Lance Bass,

MetaFilter: Hold my endless well of knowledge
posted by Gorgik at 2:52 PM on December 26, 2023 [14 favorites]

[Aside: 'rizz' (meaning to charm or seduce) was named by Oxford University Press as its word of the year for 2023. Something I just learned.]
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 2:54 PM on December 26, 2023 [4 favorites]

It's a noun not (typically) a verb, right?
posted by splitpeasoup at 3:00 PM on December 26, 2023 [5 favorites]

Bulgarktonos, please explain the Baby Gronk thing?

I'm not them, but basically, in brief: Olivia (Livvy) Dunne, a pretty blonde LSU gymnast and IG fashionista, may have enticed Rob Gronkowski's son into choosing LSU over his other prospects to play college football. And there's some tut-tutting because no one's certain if she (being several years older) was genuinely flirting with the kid or was induced to do so by LSU for that exact purpose.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 3:01 PM on December 26, 2023 [7 favorites]

Meaning charm (noun) not charm (verb), again at least most of the time.
posted by splitpeasoup at 3:02 PM on December 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

Not that I know anything, as parent to a young child most of my 2023 cultural references come from Bluey.
posted by splitpeasoup at 3:12 PM on December 26, 2023 [8 favorites]

As I understand it, "rizz" is derived from charisma
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:44 PM on December 26, 2023 [7 favorites]

Sticking out your gyatt for the rizzler
You’re so skibidi
You’re so fanum tax
I just want to be your sigma
Freaking come here
Give me your Ohio
posted by infinitewindow at 3:49 PM on December 26, 2023 [10 favorites]

Anyway - here is my proposed contender for sentence of the year:

“I think we can all agree Elon isn’t serious and it’s time to move on.” -Mark Zuckerberg
posted by splitpeasoup at 3:53 PM on December 26, 2023 [16 favorites]

most of these made no sense and had no explanation.

They changed what "it" is, what we're with isn't "it" and "it" seems weird and scary mostly just kinda dumb.
posted by Foosnark at 3:53 PM on December 26, 2023 [12 favorites]

I have no children at all and most of my 2023 cultural references come from Bluey.
posted by joannemerriam at 3:53 PM on December 26, 2023 [6 favorites]

Give me your Ohio

I would give you the actual Ohio to make any of this make sense.
posted by howbigisthistextfield at 4:02 PM on December 26, 2023 [7 favorites]

Not that I know anything, as parent to a young child most of my 2023 cultural references come from Bluey.

If the only thing Bluey ever did for me was introduce the concept of a “tactical wee” to my 4 year old, it would already have been worth every minute I’ve spent watching it. It’s a pretty remarkable show, honestly - kind, warm, honest, very sympathetic of the travails of both kids and parents.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 4:10 PM on December 26, 2023 [9 favorites]

Hey, I understood the reference, "I am Kenough!" Annnd that was it. That's all I got.

Almost.

My brain is exploding at "I am become death... " being attributed to ... Oppenheimer! No, worse, to Cillian Murphy?! What the fuck? That quote is directly from the Bhagavad Gita. This is like attributing "Let there be light" to Michael Scott - no, to STEVE CARRELL.

A cordial🖕 to the list makers
posted by MiraK at 4:19 PM on December 26, 2023 [19 favorites]

My brain is exploding at "I am become death... " being attributed to ... Oppenheimer! No, worse, to Cillian Murphy?! What the fuck? That quote is directly from the Bhagavad Gita.

My understanding is that "I am become death..." is Oppenheimer's own translation and an idiosyncratic one at that, such that it's fair to attribute it to him, and not to the Bhagavad Gita.
posted by firechicago at 4:30 PM on December 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

I only knew four of these

I knew one and am glad for it.
posted by dobbs at 4:32 PM on December 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

> My understanding is that "I am become death..." is Oppenheimer's own translation and an idiosyncratic one at that

Huh?? No, it's not idiosyncratic in the least. The most literal translation is "I have become Time, world-destroyer" but the word for Time is used interchangeably with "death" throughout the epic poem.

For your information, "Let there be light" is also a translation, and just because I can find Steve Carrell as Michael Scott saying "I declare... let there be light!" doesn't make it any less ludicrous to attribute the latter part of this line to him. Fucking white people, SMH.
posted by MiraK at 4:35 PM on December 26, 2023 [11 favorites]

My sad number is like 21.

I feel like all 84 quotes should be about Taylor Swift x the NFL because that has been the stupidest thing to happen in this world or any other.
posted by fleacircus at 4:46 PM on December 26, 2023 [4 favorites]

2024: Lizzo razzes Baby Groot
2025: Grass Muttons/Big Buttons
2026: "She was teak, stone slab, mall product"
2027: rapazoid phase
2028: trogging smig on the toecutter
2029: "Only Flesh for Giant Cobb"
2030: biphalbetic
2031: SNARLIN AND CHARLIN
2032-2036: interregnum
2037: "shammin with hoog, in nozzle drone"
2038: the low god desecrates the last golden field
2039: "if there were only seed, there would be land ripe with child"
2040:
2041-2043: shudder chant cycle
2044: WHAT IT DOES, SMIDDENS?
posted by phooky at 4:57 PM on December 26, 2023 [36 favorites]

I would give you the actual Ohio to make any of this make sense.

See, you can untangle this stuff, you can go down the Google rabbit holes and figure out what the fuck Kandeee Krush means when she raps about how she wants to gribble the wonk-wonk... but it's never worth it. It always turns out to be some incredibly stupid thing, stupider than you could've ever imagined. Somebody from a reality show called Drake a wonk-wonk gribbler on Twitter, and some teenager with a My Little Pony face tattoo posted a Tik-Tok about gribbling the wonk-wonk where they lip-synced a line from Gossip Girl and that got 32 million views, and now there's a Gribble the Wonk-Wonk challenge, and Kandeee Krush is cashing in on it with a new song about gribbling the wonk-wonk. And "gribbling the wonk-wonk" doesn't mean anything; it never did. It was a misheard phrase from an old Youtube cartoon about a llama that farted a lot. So, there. Now you now. And while you were busy trying to figure that out the Nazis were taking over and the planet was dying.

I might be more amenable to amusing myself to death if the amusements available weren't so shit.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 4:59 PM on December 26, 2023 [29 favorites]

Baby Gronk (kid that is good at football and famous on instagram) is not Rob Gronkowski's (NFL player from the last decade who was good even though he mostly played for the patriots) son. The kid's real name is Madden San Miguel . Baby Gronk is just a name made up by Madden's dad to hype up his son who is talented at football.

The dad doesn't seem like that great of a dude but idk

(i hope everything is cleared up now)
posted by capnsue at 5:07 PM on December 26, 2023 [9 favorites]

It's a list compiled by people who think everything is stupid and ... everything is stupid and ... everything is, indeed, stupid.

Yup. It was stupid.
And I don't GARA.
posted by BlueHorse at 5:12 PM on December 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

"You lucky we ass" is a pretty great thing to say to a team that's just defeated you, though. I respect that.
posted by Faint of Butt at 5:22 PM on December 26, 2023 [13 favorites]

Oppenheimer more or less quoted the line exactly as it is in the Gita.
posted by splitpeasoup at 5:33 PM on December 26, 2023 [4 favorites]

Thank god I don't know what most of these mean.
posted by signsofrain at 5:50 PM on December 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

As I understand it, "rizz" is derived from charisma

On a recent episode of the Something Rhymes with Purple podcast, Susie Dent blew my mind by telling us that while the word goes back centuries to refer to a gift bestowed by a deity, the sense of the word “charisma” as personal charm or attractiveness was first used in the 1950s. (The discussion was in the context of “rizz” being the word of the year.)
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:54 PM on December 26, 2023 [5 favorites]

2037: "shammin with hoog, in nozzle drone"

1974: "Frammin' at the Jim-jam, Frippin' in the Krotz!"
posted by Greg_Ace at 5:59 PM on December 26, 2023 [12 favorites]

Baby Gronk (kid that is good at football and famous on instagram) is not Rob Gronkowski's

Huh, you're correct, my fault for assuming and not checking.

Also, what with all the nonsensical hip-hop lyrics collected here, I'm kind of surprised "Dracula Flow" didn't make the cut:

This shit ain't nothing to me man
Chanel optics got mе seeing shit
I need fentanyl slime
I just popped a whole garbanzo bean, fuck you mean?
I smoke real Emrānī rapscallion ghost nuggets
Y'all can't fuck with me
I'm him! I been him! I will continue to be him!
Yellow rubies glistening like piss
Gulping sea monkeys by the gallon, my tummy feel crazy

posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 6:45 PM on December 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

"A resurgence of Dadaism" was not on my Bingo card for this year.
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:56 PM on December 26, 2023 [7 favorites]

"Baby Billy’s Bible Bonkers" is.... quite a mouthful.
posted by doctornemo at 7:18 PM on December 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

No one expects Dadaism.
posted by ninazer0 at 7:19 PM on December 26, 2023 [3 favorites]

I don't want to live in this world anymore.
posted by briank at 7:41 PM on December 26, 2023 [3 favorites]

a primer for my prior comment

Some sources say Ohio means "a place where anything can happen;" some sources say it means "a place where nothing happens." The controversy rages.
posted by infinitewindow at 9:36 PM on December 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

I gave up a few years ago after "on fleek".
posted by a humble nudibranch at 10:37 PM on December 26, 2023 [5 favorites]

Rizz is definitely used as a verb as well as a noun in my world, perhaps even more frequently. To rizz someone, as in to flirt with them. "I went to a show last night and the bassist was so cool, afterwards she ended up coming over to talk to us and I tried to rizz her.."

I hadn't thought about it much, but that term has definitely been fully adopted, I think all my peers know it and most use it. As opposed to on fleek, which we don't, and cheugy, which I think we're still in the phase of using ironically.
posted by Audreynachrome at 10:57 PM on December 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

This list makes perfect sense if you regularly consume content from The Ringer. I don't read the site very often but I listen to several of their podcasts that cover television, movies and celebrity gossip. I skip the sports stuff so I didn't recognize any of those (I'd seen the Baby Gronk one on Twitter but had no idea what it was, and it being sports related explains that for me now) but since it's The Ringer I knew to expect a lot of sports. This list absolutely does not feel comprehensive of 2023, but it does feel pretty comprehensive of the things that The Ringer specifically covered in 2023.
posted by notheotherone at 10:59 PM on December 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

oh yeah rizz, so i learnt the term this summer during one of my very rare encounters with the teenage species ... and then i saw it used on an internet article headline recently and felt crushed that it was mainstream slang and I didn't get to be proud to know it anymore ...
posted by an opinicus at 6:12 AM on December 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

Every noun can be used as a verb if you try hard enough.
posted by Pendragon at 8:31 AM on December 27, 2023 [5 favorites]

Every noun can be used as a verb if you try hard enough.

Calvin: I like to verb words.
Hobbes: What?
Calvin: I take nouns and adjectives and use them as verbs. Remember when "access" was a thing? Now it's a thing you do. It got verbed. Verbing weirds language.
Hobbies: Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding.
posted by Taro at 8:42 AM on December 27, 2023 [12 favorites]

Look at what you all have done to my beautiful lawn.
posted by Reverend John at 8:57 AM on December 27, 2023 [7 favorites]

Some sources say Ohio means "a place where anything can happen;" some sources say it means "a place where nothing happens." The controversy rages.

i thought it meant "a place where cleveland happens"
posted by pyramid termite at 6:06 PM on December 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

I love you, but you are excessively serious people
posted by Baethan at 6:27 PM on December 27, 2023 [10 favorites]

Fucking white people, SMH.
posted by MiraK at 4:35 PM on December 26 [10 favorites +] [⚑]

Nah we all a bunch of clowns
posted by Jarcat at 9:49 AM on December 28, 2023