This past decade was… a special one, wasn’t it? Regardless of your political views, gender, race, or detergent-pod preference, I think we can all admit that the 2010s were practically bursting at the seams with stupidity. From Florida Man’s reign of ridiculous terror to Brexit, it’s quite challenging to try to narrow down the exhaustive list of dumb moments into the hundreds, much less the tens. But I’m going to do it as an exercise in futility, which is perhaps the best homage one can pay to such an inane decade.
But first, a caveat: stupidity is subjective. The events I consider to be wholly dumb may not even make it into your top 10. With that said, if you have suggestions for additions, please put them in the comments section for both mine and others’ enjoyment/judgement.
And now, without further ado, I give you my top 30 dumbest moments of the 2010s in chronological order, because ranking them would make my head implode.
2010
1. The midterm elections, which resulted in the Democrats losing control of the House and 50 seats to the Republicans. It was one of the worst voter turnouts in 70 years (little did we know that it was about to get worse).
2. Tiger Woods’ 10 mistresses are revealed in all their fake-boob glory. Sometimes car accidents make us want to be better people. Sometimes.
3. A Wisconsin mailman was arrested for delivering mail to women naked. You gotta give him props for doing that in Wisconsin in December, though.
2011
4. Adults took the Onion headline about Planned Parenthood opening up an “Abortionplex” seriously and went apeshit. And, of course, this is far from the only time this has happened.
5. NASA identified a 13th zodiac sign, thereby throwing off the entire calendar and sending astrology nuts into a tailspin. It was a dark day for all horoscope websites’ comments sections.
6. Rick Perry forgets his own talking points during the Republican primary debates. Hey, talking and thinking at the same time is hard.
7. Johnny Depp likens photo shoots to being raped in a Vanity Fair cover story. Spoiler alert: It’s not.
2012
8. The bullshit Instagram privacy-protection post duped millions. And did so again in 2019.
9. The KEN (Ketogenic Enternal Nutrition) diet — a.k.a. the diet that mandates that you don’t eat anything except for liquids that you ingest through a tube in your nose — became popular. I bet Whole30 sounds pretty doable right about now, huh?
10. The mass hysteria over the Mayan calendar “doomsday.” But that didn’t stop 2012 the movie from becoming an unfortunate reality.
11. The ingestion of bath salts causes murder sprees and skin-eating psychosis. Way to ruin my second-favorite self-care activity, folks.
2013
12. A woman in Florida called to report drunk people… in a bar. Oh, the shock and horror she must’ve felt.
13. A Florida (again, yes) man is arrested for fondling himself at a community pool and blames invisible lesbians. Yes, that’s an actual headline. This will not be the only Florida-man item on this list — I promise you.
14. Miley Cyrus goes twerk-crazy on Robin Thicke at the VMAs. Hannah Montana died for millions of fans that day.
2014
15. John Travolta calls Idina Menzel “Adele Dazeem” at the Academy Awards. And the world was never the same again.
16. Kim Kardashian’s oily butt tries to break the internet. Honestly, it was a close call.
2015
17. The great blue-/gold-dress debate sparks a barrage of the stupidest think pieces and Twitter debates in history.
18. A British Airways flight turned around and went back to its departure city because of a “smelly poo.” And I’m sure the entire plane applauded the pilots.
2016
19. The Brexit referendum. We feel you, Brits. We all make mistakes.
20. The 2016 United States presidential election. Yeeaah.
21. The sexist backlash against the women-led Ghostbusters movie. Like sands through an hourglass, this is the sexism of our lives.
2017
22. Trump’s “There are very fine people on both sides” response to the alt-right rallies in Charlotte. I just… can’t.
23. Fyre Festival fail. It led to some fun documentaries, though.
2018
24. Do you hear “Laurel” or “Yanny”? It took three years, but the internet finally gave us a sequel to the dress debate, and like most sequels, it was lackluster.
25. Logan Paul and the terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad footage of a suicide in Japan’s Aokigahara forest. Well, at least he learned his lesson?
26. The Tide Pod Challenge. Man, we’re so very, very, very, very, very stupid.
27. A gender-reveal party stunt that caused a massive fire that torched 45,000 acres in Arizona and cost $8 million. When stupid “traditions” meet stupider people.
2019
28. The National Inquirer’s attempted to blackmail Jeff Bezos. Silly Enquirer. Blackmail is for people who don’t own half the world thanks to free second-day shipping.
29. The largest measles outbreak in a quarter of a century sweeps America… because anti-vaxxers. Stupidity officially became a major disease catalyst on the CDC’s website.
30. A Florida man is arrested for sexually assaulting a stuffed Olaf toy at Target. There’s a lot of Florida on this list. Never change, Florida.
