Between ongoing wars, elections, the cost of living and the ever-lengthening conga line of other local and global crises, 2024 was another year where we sorely needed a bit of light-hearted distraction. So come with me down memory lane, as we look back on the highlights.

Taylor Swift’s blockbuster concert run started in March 2023, it’s raked in billions, caused a slew of international incidents, and ruptured countless friendship groups. And it finally came to Australia in February this year. At long last, it ends on December 8. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to forget who Travis Kelce is, for at least a few months.

The same success can’t be said of long-time Swift rival (turned sham PR friendship that absolutely nobody is buying), Katy Perry. Yep, in 2024, Perry officially entered her Flop Era, and it’s hard to imagine her finding a way to put the popularity toothpaste back in the tube from here. But Katy you’re a firework – come on, show ’em what you’re worth.

You know what did mount a successful comeback this year? Frozen yoghurt. Following its first breakthrough moment in the early ’90s, the ice-cream alternative started making waves in Australia when Yo-Chi debuted in Melbourne in 2012. But then gelato reclaimed the throne, and we all thought froyo was a goner. Not anymore. Rain, hail or shine – froyo, or “grown-ups’ Cold Rock” as Broadsheet’s James Williams calls it, is suddenly the hottest ticket in town. Expect to queue. For ages.

All due respect to Beyonce, Billie Eilish, Chappell Roan, Sabrina Carpenter and heck, even you Shaboozey, but no one in music had a better year than Charli xcx. Brat Summer (or its Australian counterpart, sensibly rugged-up Brat Winter) was an acid-green celebration of nihilism, self-confident sloppiness and just generally being a hot mess. Maybe it’s the 20-year-trend cycle, maybe it was the last hedonic gasp of post-pandemic demon exorcism, or – most likely – maybe it’s just because Brat is one of the best banger-stacked albums to come out this century. And I’ll be damned if Lorde’s verse on the Girl, so confusing remix isn’t the best musical moment of the year (fight me).

This one’s part of a category I like to call Brat-adjacent phenomena – but has anyone noticed that smoking is kinda back in? It’s being depicted more and more in the media; vaping is no longer cool (unless you’re like 12 years old); and black-market durries are easier to find than a Toblerone in an airport, thanks to legal packs costing a ridiculous $50. This is obviously a very bad outcome for public health. Maybe every generation is just doomed to have regretful situationship with the lung lollies?

Gina, I feel you. If I had a dollar for every time I got tagged in an unflattering photo that I wanted absolutely scrubbed from the internet, I wouldn’t be as rich as you, but I’d definitely be loaded. But alas, Madam Rinehart, the Streisand Effect is real, and instead of just copping the Vincent Namatjira portrait that nobody would have seen otherwise, you committed the cardinal sin of trying to get it removed. Which thereby drew the news media’s Eye of Sauron. It’s not the crime, Gina! It’s the cover-up!

In other art news, remember when that absolute peanut sued Mona for gender discrimination earlier this year, shutting down the Ladies Lounge, which only female-identifying people are permitted to enter? Not only did it lead to the revelation that artist Kirsha Kaechele (the wife of Mona owner David Walsh) had forged the room’s numerous Picasso paintings, we also got two incredibly entertaining court hearings out of it (one, two). And, wouldn’t you know it, Tasmania’s Supreme Court said the Lounge could re-open. Feminists rejoiced; the manosphere wept. Let the ladies have it, I say. Everyone knows that Hobart already has plenty of male-only spaces: literally every nightclub in town.

Sorry Degrassi fans, Kendrick won.

Basically everyone I know, including me, has either gone, is in, or is going, to Japan right now. In 2024, outbound travel by Australians increased by 125.9 per cent compared with 2023 – partly because Japan’s excellent exchange rate means that it’s raining yen (hallelujah). Indonesia’s still the big man on campus as Australia’s favourite holiday destination though: it’s up nearly 36 per cent year-on-year. Sorry Europe! Maybe it’s time to get cracking on Mamma Mia 3?

We lost two titans of Australian cooking in the past 12 months (Granger passed on Christmas Day last year). One helped to introduce the world to Australian flavours, and the other helped to introduce Australia to the flavours of the world. It’ll take years for us to comprehend the legacy of these premature losses, but Max Veenhuyzen’s 2020 profile of Granger, and Michael Harden’s wonderful obituary for Malouf, are great places to start.

Elsewhere in chef world, it felt like every chef in Australia released a cookbook this year. Two of them even won big at the “Oscars of the food world”. Daunted by the selection? Here are our picks of the year.

In June a landmark report revealed the extent of sexual assault and harassment in Adelaide’s hospitality industry. A few months later the Sydney Morning Herald published an exposé on Sydney restaurant group Swillhouse and the ABC investigated the city’s largest hospitality player. All this was harrowing, but not surprising to anyone who’s worked in a restaurant or bar. This feels like the tip of the iceberg and more will likely come to light in 2025. Hospo, like many industries around Australia, is doing it tough at the moment. But this is too important to wait until better days – things need to change now. In the meantime, here’s what to do if there’s harassment or abuse happening in your workplace.

This feels like an appropriate time to segue to the Macquarie Dictionary word of the year: enshittification, which is “the gradual deterioration of a service or product brought about by a reduction in the quality of service provided, especially of an online platform as a consequence of profit-seeking.” It’s the feeling that everything is just becoming gradually more terrible, bit by bit. And it won both the People’s Choice and the Committee’s Choice – the Electoral College and the popular vote, which has only happened three times in the history of the award. Other runners-up and shortlist nominees included: brainrot, rawdogging, looksmaxxing, and skibidi. Worthy winners all.

Everything might be enshittifying, but at least we’ll always have Moo Deng. Pure, sweet, innocent Moo Deng. Everyone’s favourite Thai-born pygmy hippo stole our hearts when she was born back in July, and she’s still going strong. As Vogue says, “Moo Deng is the moment.”

Here’s the full recap of what was maybe the silliest thing to happen in Sydney food this year (and there’s stiff competition), but in the interest of brevity, I’ve prepared this haiku to summarise:

Cookies from abroad

Sold in Bondi, with long lines

Made fools of us all

I’ve been holding a lot of space for the Wicked press tour, but I don’t have any space left for the marketers that tried to make Glicked – because Gladiator II and Wicked both opened on the same day – a thing. Barbenheimer was a beautiful, organic, one-and-done. Please stop trying to replicate it, Hollywood.

The Fox sisters. Saya Sakakibara. Domination in the pool. Our youngest ever gold-medallist. Australia’s most successful Olympics had no shortage of iconic, indelible moments that are already seared into collective memory. So there’s something deeply, hilariously Australian about the fact that last-placer Rachael Gunn – forever immortalised as Raygun – will always be the first image that comes to mind when we think of Paris 2024. Whether you think the breakdancing uni lecturer with the fierce kangaroo pose was a fraudster or a misunderstood genius, one thing’s for sure: we’ll never forget her. Have a happy retirement Raygun, you’ve earned it.