Social Underground: Worst Things 2014
2014 was a year that had its share of terrible and disastrous news. It felt like everyday had some new and awful thing that made us shake our heads. Moments of joy were interrupted with bad news, bad movies and bad music. So let’s recap all the crap you’ve been watching on TV, hearing on the radio, and viewing in theaters from 2014:
THE WORST NEWS STORIES OF 2014
- Ebola
- 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia
- Russia invading Ukraine
- The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) releases the final part of its Fifth Assessment Report, warning that the world faces “severe, pervasive and irreversible” damage from global emissions of CO2.
- Russian rebels shooting down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (Boeing 777) crashes in Ukraine, after being shot down by a missile. 298 people die, including 15 crew members
- ISIS beheading innocent journalists and AID workers
- ISIS invading Syria and Iraq causing hellish havoc to innocent people
- Israel and Hamas going at it which lead to 2,100 Palestinians and 71 Israelis killed
- The annexation of Crimea
- Michael Brown being shot and killed by the police
- Eric Gardner choked to death by police
- Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappearing and CNN not shutting up about it (Also suggesting a black hole swallowed it)
- CNN covering basically any story at all
- Japan’s whaling industry
- Everything involving Kim Kardashian
- Donald Sterling, former owner of the Clippers going on a racist rant
- Robin Williams committing suicide after dealing with so much personal problems
- Losing Phillip Seymour Hoffman to an overdose
- Bill Cosby is allegedly a rape monster with over a dozen women accusing
- The Sony hack
Why always the bad news? Good stuff happens everyday and it rarely gets any play in the media. Why? Because fear, death and bad news gets the views and the clicks. Think about it: You see a title of something horrific and it’s like a car accident. You know it will be something awful to see, but you slow your car down and look. A person a mile behind you thinks, “Why the hell is there traffic?!” and then they pass the scene and know that is the reason and slow down. It’s might not even be an accident, it may just be someone pulled over by the cops and people slowing down because of the fear of police.
That’s the news as we know it nowadays. You can see when a major tragedy happens, people cling to it like flies sucking on feces because the major news organizations hype it non-stop for days.
However, they will also interrupt constantly with “BREAKING NEWS” about something is old or not worthy of such an eye-catching scene, but also introducing something that isn’t really worthy of the title:
Everything in the news is terrible and depressing. Everyone working in the news is responsible for reporting news that matters and deserves reaching the front pages.
The Earth is full of hellish things and monstrous acts that occur and need to be brought to the public eye, but what we get is major news coverage about some untalented millionaire kid getting drunk and arrested. This type of “news” should be left to those trashy papers above the gum at the checkout line at the grocery store.
WORST MOVIES OF 2014
- The Fault In Our Stars
- The Amazing Spider-Man 2
- Divergent
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
- Son of God
- God’s Not Dead
- Transformers: Age of Extinction
- Robocop
- I, Frankenstein
- A Million Ways to Die in the West
- Exodus: Gods and Kings
- Saving Christmas
Obviously, there are many more movies that were terrible and should be noted on this list, but I can’t have this list have 50 movies on it. It could easily have that many, but these movies were truly awful.
The Fault In Our Stars — A boring movie about a dying girl that has a twist at the end. It’s like a writing prompt on Reddit where someone asks, “Write about a girl with cancer that wants to be in love, but only use inspirational refrigerator magnets as dialogue.”
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 — Too many villains, bad CGI, being completely unnecessary in the first place, and badly written and directed. When you hear “Did you see Spider-Man 2?… no, the bad one.” That’s bad.
Divergent — It was the Hunger Games, but awful and ultimately confusing.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles — It felt like a first draft of a film. A bad first draft. The turtles looked ridiculous and had no personality at all. Plus, Michelangelo seemed like a pervert toward Megan Fox almost constantly.
Son of God — Unintentional comedy of the year.
God’s Not Dead — If he exists, he’d kill himself because of this movie.
Transformers: Age of Extinction — As I wrote in my Eye Candy Vs. Plot Debate, I mentioned this movie heavily. It’s almost 3 hours of awful garbage. 3 HOURS of robots fighting and it managed to be awful.
Robocop — The original Robocop was a classic. This movie was just a money grab where they made Robocop look like Iron Man, but lamer.
I, Frankenstein — It made no sense. It was written by the guy who wrote Collateral, which was amazing. So, this confused me for how bad it was. Maybe just a paycheck for him to write it?
A Million Ways to Die in the West — You know when someone tells a funny joke and then continues with it for 90 minutes? That’s this movie, but the joke wasn’t funny.
Exodus: Gods and Kings — Really makes you realize how silly the Bible is if put on screen when the director doesn’t really know what he does. If you want to watch this, don’t, just go watch The Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston.
Saving Christmas — This is one of the worst things ever filmed. I know The Room is one of the worst, but that one is legendary in how funny it was. This is just bad is a sad, pathetic way.
THE WORST ALBUMS OF 2014
This is going to be a tough one. At any given time you can turn on the radio and hear the worst song you’ve ever heard. Right after that song will be worst than the one before it. It’s an exhilarating exercise in music continually getting worse. Let’s jump into music that will make you rather listen to your parents make-out at a family dinner.
- Skrillex – Recess
- Iggy Azalea – The New Classic
- Coldplay – Ghost Stories
- Lily Allen – Sheezus
- Pharrell Williams – G I R L
- Maroon 5 – V
- David Guetta – Listen
- Jennifer Lopez – A.K.A.
- The Twang – Neontwang
There are so many more. So many bands or solo artists that just went into the studio and recorded themselves hitting instruments with other instruments. I mentioned this in the “Best of 2014” post about a Taylor Swift having a song I knew was I hated, but knew that others could recognize it as being good. But the music on this list was just outstanding in its crappiness. Especially Pharrell! He’s amazing, but that album sucked harder that a murder victim grasping for air with a bag on his head. That “alleged” plagiarism with that Marvin Gaye…I mean, Robin Thicke song. Also, stop wearing that sorting hat from Harry Potter. When I see him I just hear “SLYTHERIN!” in my head.”
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Jeff Sorensen is an author, writer and occasional comedian living in Detroit, Michigan. You can look for more of his work on The Huffington Post, UPROXX, BGR and by just looking up his name.