2022 Year of the Slap: Best Pop Culture Moments

Taylor Swift was up. Elon Musk was in, out, and in. Tom Cruise was back. BTS stepped aside, and so did Serena Williams, and Tom Brady too — oops, scratch that.

But the slap? The slap was everywhere.

Ok, so maybe it wasn’t on the level of a moon landing, or selection of a pope. But henceforth all you need say is “the slap” and people will know what you mean — that moment Will Smith smacked Chris Rock at the Oscars and a global audience said, “Wait, did that happen?” Even in the room itself — maybe especially in the room itself — there was a sense that everyone had imagined it, which helps explain why things went on as normal, for a bit.

The pandemic was over in 2022, phew! Well, of course it wasn’t. But live entertainment pushed forward, with mask mandates dropping, and people rushing to buy things like, oh, Taylor Swift tickets!

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