#34: The 2024 Consumpties
Death By Consumption
2024-2024
Considering today is conveniently the last day of the year, rather than a usual look at what I consumed all week (mostly wine and baked goods), I figured why not do a look back at the whole year? This was the first year of Death by Consumption, and let me be earnest for half a sentence to say thank you for subscribing, for replying, for forwarding, or even for deleting without reading. I started this genuinely just for myself, as a way to process the things I consume rather than immediately forgetting about them, and it‘s always thrilling when someone responds to anything I write in a positive way (I’d also take a negative response, though — I love an email fight!).
Now, let’s get right into the (first annual?) Consumpties!
Movie of the Year
Challengers
There were so many contenders for movie of the year — Conclave of course, The Substance, Dog Day Afternoon for the 49th year in a row — but nothing beat the energy of seeing Challengers in a packed theater. We were so electrified coming out of that theater we raced to a bar, had too many drinks, and then my friend stole two glasses from the bar. Challengers made everyone temporarily feral, and may have been the last moments of pure fun our nation had, before the election came along and ruined the rest of the year.
TV Show of the Year
Ripley
Ripley should not have been that good — a seemingly pointless remake of an already iconic book and film, only much longer, and on Netflix?! And yet it completely won me over by not trying to copy what the movie did, but instead becoming its own, standalone perfect series. It also proves that Netflix can make actually beautiful television, which begs the question: why are the rest of its shows so bad?
Movie Moment of the Year
Jon Voight: “What do you think of this boner I got here?” - Megalopolis
In some ways, I don’t think I ever recovered from this scene. Jon Voight seems like a pretty terrible person, but he did deliver the performance of a lifetime while shooting that teeny tiny bow and arrow, so I say it all evens out.
TV Moment of the Year
Serena and Kordell win Love Island
I can’t believe I became a Love Island gay, but with this year’s cast there was really no going back once I dipped my toes in. Leah will always be my favorite (if she’s not on The Traitors season 4, we riot) but I challenge anyone to watch this season and not fall completely in love — to an alarming amount, really, I don’t know who I became for a few weeks this summer — with Serena and Kordell. This was one of the least-surprising endings to a reality show I’ve ever seen, but it felt so right, a deserved coronation. I really hope next season is boring as fuck, though, because I can’t give up so much time over the summer again.
Reality TV Moment of the Year
“You’re a traitor, bitch.“ “You’re the biggest fucking traitor here, so fuck off.” - Sandra Diaz-Twine and Janelle Pierzina, The Traitors
We’re so, so close to another season of The Traitors, but I already worry there’s no way they can top the near-perfection of last season. The Traitors is a fever dream of a show, one that deeply rewards my 25-years-long degenerate addiction to reality TV. There were many surreally hilarious moments of the perfect second season — Parvati walking with a poisoned chalice, Phaedra saying, “Don’t do that, Parv-a-TI,” Sandra Diaz-Twine commenting that Larsa Pippin looks “at least 10 to 12 years older than me,” Sheree getting caught in a gigantic cartoon net — but this moment between reality TV and camp comedy legends Sandra and Janelle is the moment of the season I replay in my head the most. To see these two titans, with a combined 40 years’ worth of reality TV experience, taking a glorified party game this seriously is exactly why The Traitors will always be appointment TV. I am a very sick person, and The Traitors is my medicine.
Survivor Moment of the Year
“I’M PISSED!” - Survivor 46
First of all: yes, I know you’re probably wondering why the TV Moment of the Year was from reality TV, and then there was a separate category for Reality TV moment of the Year, and now Survivor gets its own moment of the year?! All I can say is: all three moments deserve it, sorry! Survivor has always stood in a separate category for me from the rest of TV, even when it‘s not great (and it has not been great lately). And this moment from season 46 was the first truly iconic moment we’ve had on the show since Mike White was on it 10 seasons ago.
For background: Liz had been starving on the island for like two weeks by this point, worse than people normally starve on Survivor, since she is allergic to literally everything, even coconuts — but, somehow, the one thing she is not allergic to is the Applebee’s Swiss Mushroom Bourbon burger (I know), which just so happens to be the reward fellow-contestant Q won in a challenge. Given the choice to bring a couple people along for their own burgers, Q, who has had tension with Liz for days, picks two other people, which makes Liz snap. We never really found out why Liz, who literally can’t eat chicken, can eat an Applebee’s Swiss Mushroom Bourbon burger, or if the producers knew that and knowingly planted this item here for this reason, but the lack of specific details make this scene all the more iconic. For one brief, shining moment, the Survivor of my youth, the one full of deeply weird people forgetting they’re being filmed and acting in outlandish ways, was back, and for that I thank Liz and Q and of course Applebee’s.
Book of the Year
James, by Percival Everett
I know this is kind of a basic pick by now, but I don’t care! Percival Everett is mainstream now, and that’s great news for everyone. (Except, maybe, Percival Everett, who probably hates a lot of this attention.)
Housewife of the Year
TIE: Mary M. Cosby and Angie K. - The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City
RHOSLC is the perfect mix of true crime and the parts of a David Attenborough nature series where they show you crazy things that live at the bottom of the ocean. These women are strange and wrong, which makes the whole show so, so, so right. And the existence and new friendship of Mary Cosby and Angie K. is perhaps the pinnacle of the show’s promise. We all worried the show wouldn’t be able to continue after the explosive “Reality Von Tease” of it all (if these words mean nothing to you, I bet you live such a fulfilling life!), but watching Mary and Angie somehow blossom from sideshow freaks into full-fledged Housewives was exactly what our nation needed to maybe start healing.
Man of the Year
Hunter Biden
I’m being so serious when I say he should run for president. Who cares anymore?
Woman of the Year
Kristen Doute
The Valley was unexpectedly great TV, all her old coworkers/ex-friends got fired from Vanderpump Rules en masse, she’s carrying a potential unabomber’s child… as our nation crumbled into a trashocracy ruled by shameless cretins, is it any surprise that Doute is thriving in the wreckage?
Non-Binary Person of the Year
Cole Escola
The Supreme. When a friend asks if I’ve seen Oh, Mary! yet, I get a little thrill at getting to say, “Oh, well, I saw it off-Broadway…”
Loser of the Year
Elon Musk
This man is like the richest person in the world, basically the President, and yet no one wants to be his friend. There has literally never been a bigger loser than Elon Musk, and I find it really comforting to know that, however bad things get in my life, I could never be as pathetic as him.
Flop of the Year
Kathy Hochul
I don’t care that congestion pricing is finally happening in NYC. The fact that our Governor — who has the vibe of one of the scary people in It Follows, a creature slowly walking at you down a long hallway — single-handedly killed it for no reason, before wearing an “I <3 the MTA” shirt to a Pride parade, means I will always despise her. At least when Eric Adams was making our lives actively worse all year he was being funny about it.
Cry of the Year
The wedding of my friends Emily and Jules
The last thing I needed before going into dehydrated-skin season was sobbing on and off for like 4 hours, but it had to be done.
Celeb Moment of the Year
Justin Timberlake’s arrest
We all remember where we were. This felt like a massive exhale, a release, a relief. We finally got him.
TikTok of the Year
Bethenny Frankel’s DroneTok
The NJ drone conspiracy is still going as I type this, and there are a lot of unknowns, but one thing is certain: Bethenny Frankel is on the case. Detective Skinnygirl has kept us informed of all the latest wild rumors over the past month, reporting from “sources” with vague allegations that keep us on the knife’s edge, perched between thrill and terror. She remains a master of her craft, the queen bee of our national freak show, and this whole debacle has convinced me that she is absolutely funded by the CIA.
Drink of the Year
Guinness
Justin and I drank a lot of Guinness while we were in the UK and then started noticing an odd pattern: a Guinness keg tapped in various pubs, or locals half-joking, “Guinness is reserved for us!” as we approached the bar. Turns out: Gen Z has decided Guinness is cool now, and they’re buying it all up. Upon learning this, I felt shame at being associated with a trend, but secretly I felt a thrill at stumbling into doing something all the cool young kids are doing. I’m not old yet!
Queer of the Year
Tracy “Holding Space” Gilchrist
I saw someone describe her as “gay people’s Hawk Tuah” and I barely know what that means but it feels right. I’m glad she’s making some money and having fun with the whole thing, but an evil part of me wishes she would have reacted to it earnestly and doubled down on the whole thing until she fully lost her mind in public.
Weather of the Year
The NYC November Drought
I love when weather is happening, but sometimes the really dramatic stuff comes with, you know, a lot of death and destruction, which kind of takes the fun out of it. The drought last month did lead to at least one death, a tragically young volunteer firefighter, but for the most part it thankfully didn’t progress much beyond a thrilling, slow-moving escalation — are we going to have to ration water? I wondered, my body tingling with excitement and dread. Should I start stockpiling? Will sparkling water be useless for bartering, or will it go triple platinum? Our future is dire, but at least I’ll get all sorts of new, dramatic weather to talk about.
Podcast of the Year
TIE: TrueAnon and Sexy Unique Podcast
As the world collapsed around us the more the year progressed, these two podcasts became essential listening for me. TrueAnon, always teetering on the verge of genuinely informative and hilariously unhinged, covered the psychotic vibes of both political parties throughout the election and helped me mentally brace for Kamala’s loss, while also going deep on the Boeing whistleblower “suicide” and the complex belief system that may have inspired Luigi. Meanwhile on SUP, Lara and Carey continued their always great coverage of the freaks and lunatics of the Bravo universe, but they reached true icon status near the end of the year, when they had the deranged and genius idea to recap the Bible.
Onion Rings of the Year
Old Town Bar, Manhattan
I always worry I’ve overhyped these onion rings to myself, and then I order them and remember I should never, ever doubt myself.
Conspiracy of the Year
Kate Middleton is Missing
This, more than anything else on this list, feels like it happened 100 years ago. The AI photos are still shocking to this day, though. What were they thinking?! This all ended in kind of a sad and gross way, of course, but at least we all had fun learning about a person known as the Marchioness of Cholmondeley.
Diva of the Year
Chappell Roan, obviously
Everyone was so annoying about Chappell! Let’s all try and be normal about her in 2025, okay? If you guys won’t let Chappell act like a true diva, then we’re all going to be stuck with snores like Tate McRae or whoever. So when she starts, like, slapping assistants on the red carpet next year, let’s all hold hands and agree that the culture needs this.