Year in review: The 32 biggest news stories of 2021
From Scarlett Johansson's Disney lawsuit to the Free Britney movement, The A.V. Club chronicles some of this year's most memorable news stories
Aux News Hunter Biden
Clockwise from left: Billy Porter (Photo: Rich Fury/Getty Images), Britney Spears (Photo: Valerie Macon/Getty Images), Scarlett Johansson (Photo: Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images), Nicki Minaj (Photo: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images), Squid Game (Screenshot: Netflix), Bo Burnham (Photo: Rich Fury/Getty Images) Graphic: Natalie Peeples
Though 2021 was still a shaky year in many ways, it was a definite improvement from 2020—and that alone is worth celebrating. Still, after 12 long news-packed months, we know that it can be tough to recall exactly which film brought people back to the theaters or which musician made outlandish anti-vaccine claims or which actor sued a media conglomerate.
But here’s where we can help. From F9 to Nicki Minaj to Scarlett Johansson, The A.V. Club has compiled a chronological list of 2021’s biggest news stories so you can sit back and remember this strange—slightly better—year. (Looking at you, 2022.)
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We all listened to Donda for two days?What? Are you that out of touch?I know many people who have been hooked on a steady stream of Donda for the past couple months. Say what you want about Ye’s personality, but tracks like Off The Grid, Moon, Junya*, and Come to Life are momentous, and I’m sure they’ll be markers of where I was at this time in my life.*Yes, I said Junya. I can’t trust someone who won’t succumb to Junya’s pleasures.
Those people are brainwashed cult members, normal people left Ye a long time ago.
Those tracks are some of the best of Ye’s career; the problem is they’re sandwiched between 30 other lesser, inessential ones.
Ooh, this is the first good thing I’ve heard about Donda, I might actually give it a listen now. Critics seem unable to focus on anything other than Kanye’s personality at the moment, which makes it hard to gauge whether his work has actually declined in quality, or if he’s just been acting like an asshole.
Don’t worry, his work is just as bland and samey as it’s always been
Remember, for those who don’t enjoy the slideshow format of this article, you can make your browser window narrower to force a list view. 30+ slides is a bit much.
30+ slides is also sufficient to consistently crash my crummy Amazon tablet browser.
Why would a 20 mile long vertical page of image-blurb-image-blurb-image-blurb-image-blurb, be better than a slideshow?
Because a slideshow is image-blurb….wait for it…image-blurb….wait for it…image-blurb….wait for it…image-blurb.
First of all unless you are contacting me from 1996 the “wait” is literal microseconds. You can barely comprehend the wait. And with a slideshow you don’t have to move at all. Clicking is more ergonomic than scrolling via any method.
Well, I don’t know about you, but I prefer scrolling to clicking. You can also search/find words easier if they’re all on one page.
I thought it was so dumb that LeVar’s bumpy outing made his candidacy for Jeopardy hosting a non-starter.We didn’t like Alex Trebek because he was the greatest host of all time. He was the greatest host of all time but we watched BECAUSE HE WAS SO LIKEABLE.Glad LeVar’s hosting that show that will eventually overshadow Jeopardy – kinda like (but not really like) John Oliver’s show being more relevant than The Daily Show.Also, I listened to the first track of Donda and didn’t give any songs another listen. First tracks are VERY IMPORTANT. Caps lock.
LeVar Burton is one of the few celebrities who has goodwill to burn. If you saw a headline tomorrow that said “LeVar Burton punches nun”, you would wonder what that nun said to make LeVar Burton so upset.
Id applaud it
But you don’t *PUNCH* have to *PUNCH* take *PUNCH* my *PUNCH* word for it! *PUNCH*
Here’s Emmy winning and Grammy nominated artist, and man wishing he didn’t wear a jacket everyone wants to touch, Bob Urnham!
Yes, it was VERY NEWSWORTHY!
Merry Christmas from Mel Gibson!
Gina is hot, but she’s a bat shit crazy GOP nutjob! Probably A1 in bed lol.
She bringin’ the steak sauce!
Shocked this doesn’t include the nonsense Ellie Kemper story as the feature image since you all just love that one for about two weeks over the summer.
Didn’t you publish a similar slideshow with a nearly identical premise a few weeks ago? Did your end-of-year coverage really need both “The Biggest Newsmakers of 2021″ and “The Biggest News Stories of 2021″?
New Editor-in-forced-relocation doesn’t have the eye for details?
Hey now, AV Club’s beloved new editor in chief used to run both AOL Moviefone and Yahoo! Entertainment. That’s a proven track record of success!
Didn’t AOL Moviefone pull that unprofessional bullshit in that Santa Claus interview?
Yeah, but they have some really complicated shirts.
They’re just priming us for The Biggest Makers of News Stories Slideshow which will be out tomorrow.
Gamestop went back to normal? It’s at $160 today. It was $18 before all this nonsense. Nice research.
I just realized I was reading a three week-old article, but was about to post the same thing. 1-year stock chart (note that it is gradually trending down as people wake up and take gains):
For a while, it worked, with the stock skyrocketing to the moon... But no lunar trips last forever… and by February the stock fell back to normal. Today there are probably forgotten GameStop shares collecting dust..
Are you dumb or something? GME is trading at 162 dollars today. It was 4 dollars when Roaring Kitty bought it. It’s up 4,000% still.
No one needs your facts fucking up a perfectly useless and vapid slideshow, okay?
Whoa. The AV Club actually forgot John Mulaney?
Nothing rocked my entertainment world in 2021 quite like Norm Macdonald passing. Even three months later now and I’m still sad-binging Norm clips on Youtube.
What’s more, Norm died without ever making his diagnosis public, which is the most Norm thing ever.
So are these meant to be entertainment stories? Because that ship caught in the Suez Canal is just news. If the list is just news, I can think of many more items that belong here over basically every one of these items. That said, it’s not my website….
Hey! The Blink-182 guy has cancer. Are you saying that one dude with serious medical issues is not as news worthy as Climate change destroying our habitat, Republicans plotting a coup, or social media killing our humanity?He’s from Blink-182, dammit!
There might have been some Blu-Rays in one of those containers. Are there enough people left who watch physical media to fill a shipping container?
The list does seem to be a strange hodgepodge. Inspired by the AV Club, here’s my best of list:1. Judas and the Black Messiah.2. The color red3. Sketchers sneakers4. Mets catcher James McCann5. Happiness6. Philosophy7. The island of Crete8. The Pontiac Aztec9. Thumbnails (small image files)10. Thumbnails (body part)
I would have placed Montreal defenceman Shea Weber on the list ahead of James McCann. These things are subjective though.Also, there’s nothing there about how many apples I got from our apple tree this year, that was a pretty big story.
QUIT STALLING! HOW MANY APPLES?!?!?
Hundreds. There were hundreds!
Hundreds!!!! Look out, island of Crete, there’s a new #7!
I quit after ten slides because it was mostly Assholes On Parade.
Two Jeopardy stories? No. Just… no.
December’s not even half-over. Y’all are gonna look pretty stupid when Betty White goes on that murder-spree after Christmas.
None of us will survive the murder spree (that old gal is truly vicious) so it’s important to get the list out now.
THEY HOPED FOR A “WHITE” CHRISTMAS. INSTEAD, IT WAS RED!!!
You don’t want to see what happens if White threw a party, and invited everyone she knew.
You won’t know it was Betty until she’s drinking on the beach of a non-extradition nation. So have some patience for the 2022 list.
Ah man… you were so close. I’m sure she was planning one.
New take: She faked it, and is now deep undercover doing wetwork for the CIA.
It’s a little strange that about half of the items on this list are people losing their jobs for being offensive, or people (like Gibson) who did not lose jobs despite being offensive. I think these stories are important. But it is a little distressing how completely it has taken over this site’s understanding of what is significant in entertainment news. Of all the music, movies, and other entertainment products, only two (Squid Game and Inside) were apparently viewed as equally significant to the host of the Bachelor losing his job. And in a year where the entire entertainment industry continued to be thrown into upheaval by COVID, apparently there was plenty of room on the list for . . . Dave Chappelle making people mad.There just seems to be a lack of perspective.
Which comments, specifically, did Chappelle make that were “transphobic”?!