As we speed toward the end of the semester, our staff members have looked back on the past 365 days or so of pop culture fodder and found ourselves trapped between wistful nostalgia and embarrassed cynicism. It’s been a bad run for the Harries: Harry Styles had a baffling blockbuster debut, while Prince Harry royally overshared in a new and wholly unsolicited memoir. Everyone suddenly decided to care about nepotism. Austin Butler subsumed the ghost of Elvis, and Ariana DeBose burst into public consciousness in a blaze of glory. Then was the wave of infidelity, Leonardo DiCaprio’s alarming track record and, of course, the downfall of the wife guys.

Only one thing can be said for sure: we know a little too much about each other, and far too much about the multi-millionaires who appear in our media. But don’t fret: that won’t stop us — or you — from occasionally leaning into the voyeuristic delight of a public spectacle. In that spirit, join us on a tour of second-hand embarrassment: here are some of our favorite salacious pop culture moments from the past year.

Try Fidelity

In the fall of 2022, it was uncovered that “wife guy” Ned Fulmer had been having a “consensual workplace relationship.” (I doubt his wife gave consent to this, but I digress.) A cheating scandal is bad enough, but it’s even worse when the adulterer seems to actually love his wife. If guys who like their wives cheat, what about the rest? It is important to remember in times like these that not all men cheat on their wives; some cheat on their girlfriends instead (Hey, Khloe and Tristan, how are the kids?). What happened to waiting until marriage? At least Fulmer’s coworkers were quick to cut him out of the company. If every organization fired their cheating employees, I can only imagine what would happen to our police enforcement agencies. How would we go on? Wait, maybe I’m onto something here… 

—Mia Burkholder, Contributing Writer

Nick’s Cannon doesn’t shoot blanks

How did we get here? As of December 2022, Nick Cannon’s children can play a formal game of basketball against each other. And not everyone needs to be on the court — each team can have a benchwarmer. In general, I’m an advocate for knowing less about everyone, celebrities least of all, but morbid curiosity and self-loathing have led me to ask: when does it end? Surely we can put a stop to him? At what point do we get the authorities involved? When TLC (The Learning Channel, may I remind you) inevitably chases them down and puts them all in a house together for a reality TV show, will that be the last straw for my sanity? 

—Jamila Dawkins, Staff Writer

Adam’s Levine His Wife

Don’t get me wrong, I feel terrible for Adam Levine’s family, especially his wife, upon the exposure of his flirty DMs with other women. However, it’s easy to forget that what he was doing was wrong because of the infidelity when his wording and choice phrases were so criminally cringy. It is clear that his search history was “other words for really cool,” and ultimately decided on “absurd.” Besides the incredibly brainless phrases like “I may need to see that booty” and “I’d take it [the aforementioned booty] to dinner and whisper sweet nothings to it,” we get to see him use cuss-words for the first time! “Holy f*cking f*ck”! I imagine these DMs going down in history like an ancient transcript.

—Gracie Hime, Chief of Copy 

Leonardo Di Age Cap(rio)

The fall of 2022 also resurfaced (via a Reddit graphic) the fact that, at least publicly, the 48-year-old Leonardo DiCaprio has never dated someone over the age of 25. Fun fact: the brain doesn’t fully develop until age 25, a quite troubling detail in relation to Leonardo DiCaprio’s apparent age cap requirement. Leonardo DiCaprio’s dating history cannot be separated from our gendered double standards for getting old (if you can even consider being 25 as getting old) as well as conversations surrounding power dynamics in relationships, but I’ll let my gender studies brain rest for the moment. And while discussions have centered around the idea of Leonardo DiCaprio breaking up with his girlfriends once they reach 25, I quite enjoy the opposite possibility — that the day the brain fully develops is also the day that one wakes up and decides it’s time to break Leo’s heart.

—Reilly Brady, Managing Forum Editor