9 Stories That Were Huge (And Immediately Forgotten) In 2016

The Beyhive (Beyonce's fanatically devoted followers) quickly swarmed and joined forces to ID the female whom Jay Z had allegedly had an affair with. A broad range of suspects, including Rita Ora, Rihanna, and Taylor Swift, were considered, with Swift quickly knocked out of the running because we all know she would've already written a song about it. A large contingency settled on Rachel Roy as the culprit. Roy is a fashion designer who worked with Jay Z, and was also supposedly a key player in the elevator kicking controversy which you might remember from back in 2014, wherein Beyonce's sister Solange attacked her brother-in-law at the Met Ball. Between them, Beyonce and Jay Z have had enough "drama" to fill several Real Housewives episodes.

Since we never said internet vigilantes are smart, things got even more convoluted when food show host Rachael Ray was dropped into the mix. Ray admittedly does have nice hair, but she also has no apparent connection to Beyonce or Jay Z, and she became collateral damage when fans of the pop queen started attacking her on social media ... just because her name was similar to Roy's.

And then it got even more bizarre. Beyonce's hairstylist, Anthony Pazos, claimed that the Notorious B.E.C.K.Y. was reality TV stalwart Kris Jenner. It seems like a legit insider source, but Jenner rocks a classic matronly 'do. This begs the question: Wouldn't the lyric be "You better call Becky with the mom cut"?

Nothing seems to get more of a rise out of the internet than a glimpse of celebrity genitalia. Last year it was Justin Bieber in the buff and a brief flash of LeBron James during an NBA game. This year, it was Orlando Bloom's Flying Dutchman.

Via Wethepvblic (NSFW)
At least one person on the planet wasn't impressed.

Shot while Bloom was on vacation with an indifferent-looking Katy Perry, the internet quickly melted down. Legolas has a penis. Please, someone call science. And while the internet disseminated the images, Bloom claimed to be totally humiliated by the attention. Probably because Katy Perry has never looked more bored in her entire life. "We're paddling around and my boyfriend's dick is flapping two feet away from me? Thanks for the trip, Elizabethtown."

Privacy issues aside, all the hype over a penis seems overwrought, particularly when you consider that nearly half the population has one of their own. However, the novelty of a phallus sighting continues to fascinate. That is, until we turned our attention to more pressing matters, like ...

Contaminated water! Terrorism! Zika! Touted as a guaranteed clusterfuck, the 2016 Rio Olympics proved to be more of a snoozefest than a must-watch train wreck. Right when it looked like the most controversial thing that was going to come out of the Games was the piss-poor coverage by NBC, or possibly the abundance of Michael Phelps Angry Face memes, full-time "Please, look at me" and part-time athlete Ryan Lochte injected some much-needed drama.

Fresh off a mediocre swim performance, the 32-year-old terminal frat boy was blowing off steam with teammates in downtown Rio de Janeiro late in the evening. What happened next is subject to interpretation, by which I mean that we gave up on figuring it out before we could be truly bothered with it. Things were broken at a gas station. Money exchanged hands. Was it a robbery? Vandalism? A shakedown? A little bit of all three with alcohol and a language barrier thrown in to make it even more confusing? In the classic "they said / we said ... all parties seem to be lying," we will probably never know the truth.

As a result of the incident, Lochte is banned from swimming through June 2017. He'll lose about $100,000 in bonus money. But it wasn't all bad. Fortunately for those like Lochte, there's always a trip to Dancing With The Stars and a terrible cameo in a romantic comedy.

Just when you thought nothing could be more cringe-inducing and trite than the Harlem Shake, humanity outdoes itself once again. We've suffered through planking, perching, and milking. This year's participatory meme is the Mannequin Challenge. Like most of the viral video challenges of the past, if you have a phone and a skeleton, you can do it. Even those lacking basic common sense ...

The above video features a full minute of people wielding firearms, and it piqued the interest of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, ultimately leading to their arrest on weapon and gun charges. And despite what I said in the opening, the election did seep into a few forgettable events ...

When Clinton gives a meme a go, that's its death toll.

What appeared to be a lame attempt at self-deprecating humor evoked accusations of flaunting white privilege and perpetuating racist stereotypes. Dunham offered at first an excuse based on poor body image, and then an actual apology. As for Odell Beckham Jr.'s response to the controversy, the Giants wide receiver seemed unfazed when asked about it. If you don't want to read that article, his response was basically "Man ... why?"

With a background score straight out of a Christopher Nolan movie, a newly minted marine iguana runs for its life while a horde of snakes pours out from rocky crevices to hunt it down. Did you know that snakes are born out of thin air whenever prey comes near? And that they hunt in packs? Neither did we until we saw this video! We sat transfixed while something that didn't leave us emotionally crushed happened. Of course, we also had other animal drama with a slightly less happy ending ...

After the above video was posted, it seemed everyone had an opinion on who was at fault and what should be done about it. The boy's mother was the target of harassment on the internet, and police considered possible criminal charges. Meanwhile, your Facebook friends revealed that they're still coming to terms with how jokes work.

And then the memes started, and they just kept coming, seemingly birthing like those snakes. So much so that the zoo director publicly declared his annoyance with them, and pleaded with the public to stop. "We are not amused by the memes, petitions and signs about Harambe. Our zoo family is still healing, and the constant mention of Harambe makes moving forward more difficult for us. We are honoring Harambe by redoubling our gorilla conservation efforts and encouraging others to join us." Surprisingly enough, posting non-sequiturs on a picture of a dead gorilla wasn't helping anyone's emotional state.

Even though most of the hype has died down, the Harambe Juggernaut continues to roll. Harambe was included in the presidential election, because of course he was, with the dead gorilla polling with 5 percent support in July 2016, tied with the Green Party candidate. There have been several songs written about Harambe, and a computer fighting game has just been released. Man, isn't humor great?

The nude pic was snapped without the woman's knowledge as she showered in a locker room. The image also includes Mathers covering her mouth in disgust/delight, with the commentary, "If I can't unsee this then you can't either." You can find more human caring in most major avalanches. After the post went viral, Mathers set about to do some damage control with a classic non-apology apology.

Short Mathers-less version: "I'm new to Snapchat. I only wanted to a snark / share this illegally obtained photo in front of a few close friends. Therefore, it's not my fault!" Thanks, Dani. It's nice to know that your friends are terrible, too.

As egregious and mind-numbingly callous as all this was, even more disturbing was how the media covered the story.

foxnews.com

Nope. Sorry. This was not the "crazy PC police are charging people with body-shaming" that headlines made it out to be. It's a clear invasion of privacy. In legal terms, it's "Dissemination of Private Images," a misdemeanor punishable by six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. Mathers has pleaded not guilty to charges, mostly because she's the kind of person who would take naked pictures of the elderly without their permission.