2024 Pop Culture Unwrapped: From Taylor Swift’s Record-Breaking Year to Timothée Chalamet Doppelgänger Fever
2024 was jammed packed full of ‘memeable’ pop culture moments that set the blogosphere on fire…
The things that people love, share, and celebrate online in today’s world can reflect how they think about life and what they want. Thumbs up or down. Like or dislike. Follow or unfollow. Social media has become a powerful shaper and mapper of culture and trends, influencing certain pop and entertainment events and the people behind them, powerfully. 2024 very clearly demonstrated this phenomenon.
2024 turned out to be a fascinating year for pop culture and entertainment. The year gave us a bunch of most-talked-about moments in pop culture and entertainment that went viral, setting the blogosphere on fire and fandoms into a frenzy.
The Top Moments and Trends – Good and Bad – of 2024
These memorable moments made the top 10 for last year.
1. The End of an Era
Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour ended on 8 December 2024 in Vancouver, Canada. Taylor Swift performed 149 shows at venues across five continents, grossing in excess of $2 billion (around £1.6 billion) in revenue.
Megastar Taylor Swift’s influence has become so vast that her arrival in each city she performed in increased retail activity in that city, to the extent that economists dubbed the phenomenon ‘Swiftonomics’. Over 10 million tickets were sold for the Eras Tour, with Taylor fans chatting excitedly online about tracks performed, and Swift’s clothing choices. Now that’s influential!
2. That Brat
When Charli XCX’s ‘Brat’ lit up the New Year’s Eve London sky as the city rang in 2025, she set the blogosphere ablaze, too. That’s publicity on a huge scale. Charli XCX arguably revolutionized pop music with Brat in 2024. She wasn’t the only new pop phenomenon to break in and become a trend-setter in 2024, however.
The word on the street is that Sabrina Carpenter single-handedly revived the music video in 2024. The year saw Chapelle Roan’s stratospheric rise to stardom, too. And with Gracie Abrams opening for Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo touring, and Raye sweeping the Brits – 2024 was owned by pop’s new super-girls.
3. The Year of Zendaya
Dune has made Zendaya a superstar. In April 2024, Zendaya wowed the world at Luca Guadagnino’s ‘Challengers’ film press tour.
Thanks to her stylist Law Roach, Zendaya packed a stunning wardrobe of gob-smacking looks inspired by the movie’s tennis themes. The result? A renaissance for sexy ‘method dressing’ and a press tour to remember long after match point!
4. Chalamet Meets Chalamet
Timotheé Chalamet sent fans crazy when he showed up at a Chalamet look-alike contest in New York City on Sunday October 27. Some 2,000 attendees gathered in Washington Square Park to watch around 30 wannabe Chalamets compete for a cash prize. The Dune star appeared unannounced and did selfies with contestants and fans, causing ecstatic reactions.
5. Meet Bob
Long locks were given the chop in 2024. The ‘do that dominated the year for those in the know was the bob. Seen sporting the ’24 hairstyle du jour were actors Lucy Boynton, Michelle Yeoh, and of course Zendaya. Who? Right.
Rosamund Pike’s angular cut also gets a very honourable mention. Her gorgeous face was made to be framed like this by tailored tresses that wowed.
6. Dua and the Busker
Headlining the 2024 Glastonbury this year, Dua Lipa was intercepted by a certain Liam C in a muddy Worthy Farm field.
To her credit, Dua just about managed a polite smile while Liam busked her. The internet duly recognised her dilemma with a blur of Lipa-loving hashtags.
7. Le Paris Olympics
As you might expect, the Paris Olympics was full of ‘memorable’ moments. Remember Yusuf Dikeç, the Turkish sharpshooter who won silver with award winning sublime nonchalance and almost no sharpshooter gear? How about Rachel Gun aka Ray Gun, the Ozzie breakdancer whose moves were, erm, unconventional?
The 2024 Olympics favourites might just be American gymnast Stephen Nedoroscik who solved Rubik’s Cubes while waiting to dominate on the pommel horse, or Snoop Dogg, who was NBC’s special correspondent, seen in full (horse riding) dressage outfit with Martha Stewart. Talk about memeable!
8. Willy’s Cholocate Experience
AI-generated promotional material advertised a very unofficial and entirely unlicensed Charlie and the Chocolate Factory tribute in Glasgow, Scotland, in February 2024 as “a paradise of sweet teats”, with “catchy tuns” and “exarserdray lollipops”.
Duly wowed, punters turned up to find a pound-shop event awaiting them: a barely decorated ‘abandoned’ warehouse populated by sad actors with AI-generated scripts they couldn’t learn. Disappointed children wept, and the whole thing went viral.
9. Wicked
There can be no doubt now: Ariana Grande can act like Ariana Grande can! ‘Glinda’/’Elphaba’ fanfiction is now rampant after the release of the film ‘Wicked’ in November 2024. With a 7.8/10 IMDb rating, the film has become just this side of a phenomenon, thanks to the power of social media and all-things meme. Wicked!
10. Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’
In March 2024, Beyonce’s new album ‘Cowboy Carter’ was released. The lowdown on this hoedown is that it wasn’t all about square dancing and pick-up trucks – though Beyonce did do a cover of good ol’ Dolly Parton’s smash hit Country single ‘Jolene’. It takes a megastar to do that, and it seems Beyonce pulled it off – kinda.
We spoke with Serge Eliseeff, CEO of GameTop, and he commented:
“Clearly social media has changed people’s ability – and willingness – to express their likes and dislikes online hugely. With every passing year, more and more young people – the main audience of pop culture – are influenced by what they experience online in our always-on, digital world, and in turn influence others online.
“Would Taylor Swift’s Era tour have been as huge a success without the internet? Probably not. What I love about all this is that it’s not just the big money events that go viral. It’s a disaster of a Willy Wonka convention in an abandoned warehouse or Ayo Edebiri pretending to be Irish or Keir Starmer’s cagoule. Niche, odd, charming, unexpected moments that would otherwise come and go unheralded now go viral.
“2024 had its fair share of such moments, as no doubt 2025 will. It can all make for a welcome change to bad news that can make our lives more fun and more interesting, and I think that’s a good thing.”