2012 Pop Culture History

In 2012, the world was supposed to end on December 21st, according to a misreading of the Mayan calendar that spawned an entire industry of books, documentaries, and emergency-preparedness kits. It did not end. What actually happened was that The Avengers made a billion dollars, Carly Rae Jepsen asked if you had just met her, PSY introduced the horse dance to 1.6 billion YouTube viewers, and Disney bought the Star Wars universe for four billion dollars. The Mayans, had any of them been around to comment, would probably have found this equally alarming.

Quick Facts from 2012

World Bold Event: Sandy Island, shown on maps since Captain Cook charted the area in 1774, was officially confirmed as nonexistent in 2012 when an Australian research vessel sailed directly through where it was supposed to be and found only open ocean
Top Song: Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen
Must-See Movies: The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises, The Hunger Games, Skyfall, Silver Linings Playbook, Argo, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Life of Pi, and Brave
People’s Sexiest Man Alive: Channing Tatum
Notable Books: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn and Me Before You by Jojo Moyes
Price of a Postage Stamp: 45 cents
Price of a Blu-Ray Movie: $19.99
Price of a Music CD: $9.99
The Funny Guys: John Mulaney, Ron White, and Aziz Ansari
The Mouse: Disney World and Disneyland lifted their long-standing ban on employee facial hair in 2012, permitting mustaches, beards, and goatees for the first time. Soul patches remain prohibited
Chinese Zodiac: Year of the Dragon, associated with ambition, energy, and a tendency to do everything at a scale larger than strictly necessary
The Conversation: Did the world end yet? Also, have you heard Call Me Maybe?

Top Ten Baby Names of 2012

Girls: Sophia, Emma, Isabella, Olivia, Ava Boys: Jacob, Mason, Ethan, Noah, William

Sophia held the top spot for girls for the second consecutive year. Jacob had been the most popular boys’ name for thirteen straight years at this point, a run that was nearing its end as Noah began its climb toward the top.

Fashion Icons and Sex Symbols of 2012

Mila Kunis, Lea Michele, Scarlett Johansson, Katy Perry, Jennifer Lawrence, Olivia Munn, Emma Stone, Megan Fox, Emma Watson, Malin Akerman, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Olivia Wilde

Jennifer Lawrence had just become a household name via The Hunger Games and was about to become an Oscar winner. Emma Stone was in the middle of a run that made her one of the most consistently watchable performers in Hollywood. Scarlett Johansson had just suited up as Black Widow for the second time in The Avengers and was not going anywhere.

The Heartthrobs of 2012

Chris Evans, Ryan Lochte, Stephen Amell, Tom Hardy, Justin Timberlake, Robert Pattinson, Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Adam Levine

Fresh Faces of 2012

Rita Ora and Frank Ocean both broke through in 2012. Ocean’s channel ORANGE, released in July, was one of the most critically acclaimed albums of the year and announced him as a genuinely original voice. Rita Ora’s debut single R.I.P. reached number one in the UK and established her as a commercial force before her American crossover fully materialized.

The Quotes

“There are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that.” — President Barack Obama, July 13, 2012, a line that became one of the most debated and decontextualized political statements of the election year

“Puny god.” — The Hulk, The Avengers

“The ‘D’ is silent.” — Jamie Foxx as Django, Django Unchained

Time Magazine’s Person of the Year

Barack Obama, for his reelection victory in November 2012, defeated the Republican nominee Mitt Romney with 332 electoral votes to 206. Obama won every swing state except North Carolina and became the first president since Dwight Eisenhower to win two terms with more than 50 percent of the popular vote both times.

Miss America and Miss USA

Miss America: Laura Kaeppeler, Kenosha, Wisconsin
Miss USA: Olivia Culpo, Rhode Island, who went on to win Miss Universe 2012, giving the United States both titles in the same year. Nana Meriwether of Maryland was crowned Miss USA after Culpo vacated the title upon winning Miss Universe.

We Lost in 2012

Whitney Houston, one of the most technically gifted vocalists in the history of popular music and the best-selling female recording artist of all time, died February 11, 2012, at age 48, the night before the Grammy Awards, in a hotel room at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills. The cause of death was accidental drowning, with heart disease and cocaine use as contributing factors. The Grammys proceeded the following evening. Jennifer Hudson performed a tribute.

Davy Jones, lead singer of The Monkees and one of the defining faces of 1960s pop culture, died February 29, 2012, at age 66, of a heart attack in Florida.

Andy Griffith, actor and television icon whose portrayal of Sheriff Andy Taylor in The Andy Griffith Show made him one of the most beloved figures in American entertainment, died July 3, 2012, at age 86.

Neil Armstrong, the first human being to walk on the moon, died August 25, 2012, at age 82, following complications from heart surgery. His family released a statement suggesting that when people looked at the moon, they winked at Neil.

Gore Vidal, novelist, playwright, essayist, and one of the most relentlessly opinionated public intellectuals in American life, died July 31, 2012, at age 86.

Ernest Borgnine, Oscar-winning actor whose career spanned six decades from Marty to SpongeBob SquarePants, died July 8, 2012, at age 95.

America in 2012 — The Context

It was a presidential election year, and the campaign between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney dominated political coverage from roughly January through November. The economy was still recovering from the 2008 financial crisis, unemployment remained above 7 percent for most of the year, and the central argument of the election was about which candidate and which approach to economic policy would accelerate the recovery.

The Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act in June 2012 in a 5-4 decision, with Chief Justice John Roberts writing the majority opinion and providing the deciding vote. The ruling was among the most anticipated and most debated Supreme Court decisions in years.

On December 14, 2012, a gunman entered Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and shot and killed 20 children between the ages of six and seven and six staff members. It was the deadliest mass shooting at a school in American history. The shooter had also killed his mother at home before driving to the school. The total death toll was 28, including the shooter. The massacre reignited a national debate about gun control that produced enormous public emotion and, in Congress, very little legislation.

The Doomsday Clock stood at five minutes to midnight in 2012, as assessed by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, who cited the potential for nuclear weapons use in regional conflicts, inadequate progress on climate change, and the lingering lessons of Fukushima as their primary concerns.

Hurricane Sandy made landfall in New Jersey on October 29, 2012, killing 110 people and causing approximately $50 billion in damage. It was the largest Atlantic hurricane on record by diameter. The storm forced the New York Stock Exchange to close for two consecutive days, the first weather-related closure since 1888. Lower Manhattan was flooded. The subway system took weeks to restore. New York and New Jersey declared states of emergency.

The Scandal

M.I.A. flashed her middle finger during the Super Bowl XLVI halftime show on February 5, 2012, while backing up Madonna at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. The gesture lasted approximately one second and was partially obscured. The NFL sued M.I.A. for $1.5 million in damages. M.I.A. attributed the gesture to her Hindu spiritual practice. Her legal defense argued, among other points, that the presence of provocatively dressed cheerleaders on the same field made the single-finger incident a disproportionate response. The case was eventually settled. Madonna said she was disappointed.

The Stop Online Piracy Act and its companion bill PROTECT IP prompted the largest coordinated internet protest in history on January 18, 2012. Wikipedia went dark for 24 hours. Reddit, Craigslist, Mozilla, and thousands of other sites participated. Google displayed a censorship bar over its logo. An estimated 115,000 websites participated in some form of blackout or protest. Congress received over 14 million signatures opposing the legislation. Both bills were shelved within days.

Pop Culture Facts and History

Walt Disney Company purchased Lucasfilm Ltd. from George Lucas on October 30, 2012, for approximately $4.05 billion, acquiring the rights to Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and all associated properties. Lucas received approximately half the payment in cash and half in Disney stock. Star Wars: The Force Awakens was announced shortly after. The sale prompted a wide range of reactions from fans, ranging from cautious optimism to the kind of grief normally associated with actual loss.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 grossed $500 million in its first 24 hours of release on November 13, 2012, setting a new record for the largest entertainment launch in history at that time. It surpassed the previous record set by Modern Warfare 3, which had also been a Call of Duty title.

Gangnam Style by PSY was released on July 15, 2012, and became the most-watched YouTube video in history, reaching one billion views in December — the first video ever to do so. The horse dance entered gyms, weddings, corporate events, and military bases worldwide. PSY, a South Korean rapper who had been relatively unknown outside Korea, became one of the most recognizable figures on earth within a matter of weeks.

Edvard Munch’s The Scream sold at Sotheby’s New York on May 2, 2012, for $119,922,500, setting a new world auction record for a work of art at the time. The work is one of four versions Munch created between 1893 and 1910. The buyer was not publicly identified.

Google’s Gmail became the world’s most popular email service in 2012, surpassing Microsoft’s Hotmail. The service had launched in 2004 with one gigabyte of storage, a figure that seemed almost incomprehensibly generous at the time.

The Voyager 1 spacecraft, launched in 1977, crossed what scientists believe was the heliopause in 2012, entering interstellar space for the first time. NASA confirmed the crossing in 2013 after analyzing the data. At the time, Voyager 1 was approximately 11 billion miles from the Sun, traveling at about 38,000 miles per hour. It is the most distant human-made object in existence and the only one to have left the solar system.

Stephen Hawking was awarded the Fundamental Physics Prize in 2012, worth $3 million, making it the most lucrative academic prize in the world at the time, larger than the Nobel Prize. Hawking received a special prize rather than competing in the general category, in recognition of his lifetime contributions to theoretical physics.

Russian scientists successfully regenerated a Silene stenophylla plant from a 31,800-year-old seed cache found frozen in Siberian permafrost, setting a record for the oldest plant material ever revived. The seeds had been stored by an Ice Age squirrel. The plant bloomed and produced viable seeds.

For the first time since 1977, no Pulitzer Prize was awarded for fiction in 2012. The three finalists were Train Dreams by Denis Johnson, Swamplandia! by Karen Russell, and The Pale King by David Foster Wallace. The jury recommended Train Dreams but the full board declined to award the prize, a decision that generated considerable discussion in literary circles.

Kale went mainstream in 2012. Before that year, Pizza Hut was reportedly among the largest purchasers of kale in the United States, using it not as an ingredient but as a decorative garnish around their salad bars. By the end of 2012, kale had become a staple of restaurant menus, farmers’ markets, and Instagram accounts across the country. Pizza Hut’s decorative kale era was quietly retired.

Electronic Arts was voted “Worst Company in America” by readers of The Consumerist for the second consecutive year in 2012, defeating nominees that included Bank of America and Comcast, companies that had caused measurably more financial harm to more people. EA’s victories were widely interpreted as a commentary on the passion of the gaming community rather than a proportionate assessment of corporate malfeasance.

Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James, originally published as Twilight fan fiction under a pseudonym, was re-released as a mainstream novel in 2012 and became the best-selling book of the year, eventually selling over 125 million copies worldwide. It spent 133 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. It also sparked a significant increase in rope sales.

The Mesoamerican Long Count calendar reached the date 13.0.0.0.0 on December 21, 2012, a cyclical endpoint that had been widely misinterpreted as a prediction of apocalypse. The date passed without incident, disappointing a cottage industry of doomsday content creators and leaving several bunker suppliers with excess inventory.

Wendy’s overtook Burger King to become the second-best-selling hamburger chain in America in March 2012, ending a long period of Burger King’s dominance of that position. McDonald’s remained first by a considerable margin. The burger wars were not declared over.

The Habits of 2012

Playing Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, dancing to PSY’s Gangnam Style, reading Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James or The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins.

Nobel Prize Winners in 2012

The Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Serge Haroche of France and David Wineland of the United States for groundbreaking experimental methods that enable the measurement and manipulation of individual quantum systems, with implications for quantum computing and the fundamental nature of measurement itself.

Chemistry went to Robert Lefkowitz and Brian Kobilka for their studies of G protein-coupled receptors, proteins that allow cells to sense their environment and are targets of roughly half of all pharmaceutical drugs currently in use.

Physiology or Medicine was awarded to John Gurdon of Britain and Shinya Yamanaka of Japan for the discovery that mature, specialized cells can be reprogrammed into a pluripotent state — essentially, that adult cells can be rewound to behave like stem cells. The finding transformed regenerative medicine research and opened possibilities that are still being explored.

Literature went to Mo Yan of China, only the second Chinese citizen to receive the prize, for work that merges folk tales, history, and the contemporary through his hallucinatory realism. His novel Red Sorghum is his most widely read work in translation.

Peace was awarded to the European Union for over six decades of contributions to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy, and human rights in Europe. The timing, given that the EU was in the middle of a sovereign debt crisis that had several of its member states in serious economic distress, prompted considerable editorial commentary.

Economics went to Alvin Roth and Lloyd Shapley for the theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design — work that produced matching algorithms now used in medical residency placement, school choice systems, and kidney donor pairing programs.

2012 Christmas Gifts and First Appearances

Star Wars action figures and Dominoes were inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame. The Nintendo Wii U launched on November 18, 2012, as Nintendo’s first HD gaming console. The Microsoft Surface tablet made its debut. Instagram was acquired by Facebook in April 2012 for approximately $1 billion, a price that was widely considered extraordinary at the time.

Broadway in 2012

Once, based on the 2007 Irish film of the same name, opened on March 18, 2012 at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre and ran until January 4, 2015. The musical, about a Dublin street musician and a Czech immigrant who collaborate on a recording, won eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical. The production used a minimalist staging and a cast that played their own instruments throughout.

Newsies, adapted from the 1992 Disney film about the 1899 New York newsboy strike, opened on March 29, 2012 at the Nederlander Theatre and ran until August 24, 2014. It won two Tony Awards, including Best Choreography, for choreography by Christopher Gattelli, which became the show’s signature.

Best Film Oscar Winner

The Artist, a black-and-white silent film directed by Michel Hazanavicius and starring Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo, won Best Picture at the 84th Academy Awards on February 26, 2012, for the 2011 film year. Dujardin won Best Actor, becoming the first French actor to win the award. The Artist was the first silent film to win Best Picture since Wings in 1927 and the first black-and-white film to win since Schindler’s List in 1993.

2012 Entries to the National Film Registry

3:10 to Yuma (1957)
Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
Born Yesterday (1950)
Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961)
A Christmas Story (1983)
Corbett-Fitzsimmons Title Fight (1897)
Dirty Harry (1971), A League of Their Own (1992)
The Matrix (1999)
The Middleton Family at the New York World’s Fair (1939)
One Survivor Remembers (1995), Slacker (1991)
Sons of the Desert (1933)
The Spook Who Sat by the Door (1973)
They Call It Pro Football (1966)
The Times of Harvey Milk (1984)
Two-Lane Blacktop (1971)
Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1914)

Top Movies of 2012

Marvel’s The Avengers
The Dark Knight Rises
The Hunger Games
Skyfall
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2
The Amazing Spider-Man
Brave
Ted
Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted

The Avengers became the third film in history to gross over $1 billion worldwide, crossing that threshold faster than any previous release. Director Joss Whedon assembled six previously established Marvel characters into a single film, something that had never been attempted at that scale, and delivered a result that exceeded the expectations of even committed skeptics. Skyfall, directed by Sam Mendes, was the 50th anniversary James Bond film and the highest-grossing Bond film in the franchise’s history at the time of release. Daniel Craig’s third outing as Bond was widely considered the best of his tenure.

Most Popular TV Shows of 2012

NCIS, The Big Bang Theory, Dancing with the Stars, Sunday Night Football, The Voice, Modern Family, Two and a Half Men, The Walking Dead, Survivor, and Castle dominated broadcast viewing in 2012. The Walking Dead set a cable television record with its Season 3 premiere, drawing 10.9 million viewers. Game of Thrones completed its second season, and the fan base that would eventually make it the most-watched HBO series in history was growing steadily.

2012 Billboard Number One Hits

November 12, 2011 – January 6, 2012: We Found Love — Rihanna featuring Calvin Harris
January 7 – February 3: Sexy and I Know It — LMFAO
February 4 – February 17: Set Fire to the Rain — Adele
February 18 – March 2: Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You) — Kelly Clarkson
March 3 – March 16: Part of Me — Katy Perry
March 17 – April 27: We Are Young — fun. featuring Janelle Monáe
April 28 – June 22: Somebody That I Used to Know — Gotye featuring Kimbra
June 23 – August 24: Call Me Maybe — Carly Rae Jepsen
August 25 – August 31: Whistle — Flo Rida
September 1 – September 28: We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together — Taylor Swift
September 29 – November 30: One More Night — Maroon
5 December 1 – December 21: Diamonds — Rihanna
December 22, 2012 – February 1, 2013: Locked Out of Heaven — Bruno Mars

Somebody That I Used to Know by Gotye featuring Kimbra spent eight weeks at number one and became the best-selling single of the year globally. Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen spent nine weeks at number one in the United States and became a genuine cultural phenomenon, with cover versions and lip-sync videos from Justin Bieber, the Harvard baseball team, the U.S. Olympic swim team, and the Cookie Monster, among others.

Sports Champions of 2012

World Series: The San Francisco Giants defeated the Detroit Tigers four games to none, sweeping a Detroit team that had been heavily favored entering the series. It was San Francisco’s second championship in three years. Starting pitching was dominant throughout, with the Giants staff allowing a total of six runs in the series.

Super Bowl XLVI: The New York Giants defeated the New England Patriots 21-17 on February 5, 2012, in Indianapolis, in a rematch of Super Bowl XLII four years earlier. Eli Manning was named MVP for the second time in Super Bowl play. The Patriots drove to the Giants’ 14-yard line in the final seconds, and receiver Hail Mary attempts fell incomplete as time expired.

NBA Champions: The Miami Heat defeated the Oklahoma City Thunder four games to one. LeBron James won his first NBA championship after leaving Cleveland for Miami in 2010, silencing two years of relentless criticism about his ability to win in the postseason. He averaged 28.6 points, 10.2 rebounds, and 7.4 assists in the series.

Stanley Cup: The Los Angeles Kings defeated the New Jersey Devils four games to two, winning the franchise’s first Stanley Cup championship. The Kings had entered the playoffs as the eighth seed in the Western Conference, the lowest seed ever to win the Cup. Jonathan Quick’s goaltending performance throughout the playoffs was among the finest in recent postseason history.

U.S. Open Golf: Webb Simpson won his first major at the Olympic Club in San Francisco, finishing at one over par in difficult conditions. Simpson became the 10th consecutive first-time major winner at the U.S. Open, a remarkable run of new champions.

U.S. Open Tennis: Andy Murray won the men’s title, defeating Novak Djokovic in five sets in one of the longest U.S. Open finals in recent memory. It was Murray’s first Grand Slam singles title. Serena Williams won the women’s title, her fourth U.S. Open and 15th Grand Slam overall.

Wimbledon: Roger Federer won his seventh Wimbledon title, defeating Andy Murray in four sets in the final. It was Federer’s 17th Grand Slam overall, reclaiming the world number one ranking he had lost to Novak Djokovic. Serena Williams won the women’s title, her fifth Wimbledon and 14th Grand Slam overall.

NCAA Football: Alabama won the BCS National Championship, defeating LSU 21-0 in a rematch of their regular season meeting, in what was a historically dominant defensive performance. North Dakota State won the FCS National Championship for the second consecutive year.

NCAA Basketball: Kentucky defeated Kansas 67-59 in the national championship game in New Orleans. Anthony Davis, who would go on to become a top NBA draft pick, was the tournament’s dominant figure despite averaging only 6 points per game. His defensive presence and rebounding were the defining factors of Kentucky’s run.

Kentucky Derby: I’ll Have Another won in a time of 2:01.83, trained by Doug O’Neill. I’ll Have Another went on to win the Preakness Stakes as well, setting up a potential Triple Crown, before being scratched from the Belmont Stakes the day before the race due to tendon inflammation. The scratch ended one of the more anticipated Triple Crown runs in years.

Frequently Asked Questions About 2012

Q: Did the world actually end on December 21, 2012?
A: No. The Mesoamerican Long Count calendar completed a major cycle called a b’ak’tun on that date, which many Maya scholars had long described as a calendrical reset rather than a prophecy of apocalypse. The doomsday interpretation was a Western cultural projection onto the calendar. December 22, 2012, arrived on schedule.

Q: What was Sandy Island? A: Sandy Island appeared on maps of the Coral Sea near New Caledonia for over 200 years, dating to Captain Cook’s 1774 survey of the region. In November 2012, an Australian research vessel sailed directly to its charted coordinates and found only 4,500 feet of open ocean. The island was removed from Google Maps, Google Earth, and nautical charts. Its presence on maps for so long was attributed to transcription errors passed from chart to chart across generations.

Q: How much did Disney pay for Star Wars?
A: Walt Disney Company acquired Lucasfilm Ltd. from George Lucas on October 30, 2012 for approximately $4.05 billion, split roughly equally between cash and Disney stock. The deal included Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Industrial Light and Magic, and Skywalker Sound.

Q: What happened at Sandy Hook?
A: On December 14, 2012, a gunman killed 20 children aged six and seven and six staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. The shooter had also killed his mother at home before the attack. It remains the deadliest school shooting in American history. The event produced intense national debate about gun policy that has continued ever since.

Q: What record did Gangnam Style set on YouTube?
A: Gangnam Style became the first YouTube video to reach one billion views in December 2012. It later became the first video to exceed two billion views and eventually broke YouTube’s 32-bit view counter, requiring the platform to upgrade to a 64-bit integer system capable of handling numbers up to 9.2 quintillion.

Q: Who won the 2012 NBA championship?
A: The Miami Heat defeated the Oklahoma City Thunder four games to one. LeBron James won his first NBA title and was named Finals MVP, averaging 28.6 points, 10.2 rebounds, and 7.4 assists per game in the series.

Q: What was the SOPA blackout?
A: On January 18, 2012, Wikipedia, Reddit, and thousands of other websites went dark or displayed protest messages opposing the Stop Online Piracy Act and the PROTECT IP Act. Over 115,000 websites participated. Congress received more than 14 million anti-SOPA signatures in 24 hours. Both bills were shelved within days, making the blackout one of the most immediately effective political protests the internet had produced.

In a year bookended by a Super Bowl halftime middle finger and a Bruno Mars number one hit, with a billion-dollar Star Wars sale, a nonexistent island, and a Mayan calendar misunderstanding in between, 2012 managed to keep things interesting right up until the moment the world was supposed to stop. It did not stop. It just kept going, which, depending on your perspective, was either reassuring or the whole problem.