2010's Biggest WTF Moments in Pop Culture

By Jett Wells Posted Dec 28th 2010 04:00PM

It's not even New Year's Day yet, but the hangover from the wild adventure that was 2010 is already throbbing. WTF happened in 2010? Why were so many celebs acting so crazy? This past year had such a huge batch of mind-boggling moments, it was almost like a staged episode of the craziest reality TV series ever ... cranked on Four Loko.

Although the moments were crazy, they were also enjoyable, whether it was Joaquin Phoenix's bearded charade, Prince proclaiming the death of the Internet or Frankie Muniz drumming for an Arizona indie rock group. To recall all the great WTF moments from 2010, we at PopEater had to call for back-up from our friends/Internet masters at Urlesque to get the job done right. Without further adieu, live through the best WTF moments of 2010 one last time.

Jett Wells' favorite WTF moments:

Michael Bay Puts Out $50,000 Bounty for Puppy Thrower
Bay thinks he's a total bad-ass for blowing up everything in his movies, but the coolest thing he ever did was stick up for the helpless puppies at the savage fingertips of the infamous Bosnian Puppy-Thrower. While police hunted for the mysterious girl in the red hoodie throwing puppies into a river, Bay offered up $50,000 to get the girl thrown in the slammer. If Batman lived in Hollywood, Bay would be Bruce Wayne.

Chuck Norris Becomes Actual Texas Ranger
Sometimes you say 'WTF?' because it's just too perfect, and so was the news of Chuck Norris becoming an official member of the Texas Rangers. Norris was meant to be a Texas Ranger from the beginning, and if some punk kids ran into Norris on the streets of Dallas, they wouldn't think twice. Run!

The Court-Date Ditching Saga of Randy and Evi Quaid
The story of the Quaids ditching court appearances and running from the "star-whackers" has continuously played out like the worst acid trip ever. It's the craziest story people only marginally know about, and it's great for laughs, but we might never learn what made Randy Quaid and his wife both go off the deep end.

Joaquin Phoenix Confesses to Faking 'I'm Still Here'
Phoenix's bearded stunt was an impressive gag that went on so long people forgot about it, but the hyped actor had the last laugh. Still, Phoenix went through a lot to pull off a fake personality, and most will still look back on this hoopla as Phoenix just being a jerk. WTF, dude?

Matthew Fox's Major Overshare: "I Lost My Virginity at Age 12"
Tween Matthew Fox just couldn't keep it in his pants. Not only is it a little weird to picture a 12-year-old version of the 'Lost' star, but why bother talking about this to the press? He could've said he lost it at 15 years old and no one would've blinked. Random and gross.

Woman Claims Lady Gaga Stole Her Daughter's Soul
A lot of people want to take credit for Lady Gaga's success, including former manager Rob Fusari, but it's straight-up weird that the mother of Gaga's dead friend, Lina Morgana, says Gaga stole her daughter's soul. Morgana's mother argued that Gaga stole her daughter's style, background and attitude. It's hard to believe Gaga is truly that character in real life, but imagine how disturbing it would be if it was all true, and Gaga kept a ball of Morgana's hair in her purse.

Urlesque's Rae Votta's favorite WTF moments:

Kanye's Tweets Get the New Yorker Treatment
When rapper Kanye West joined Twitter in 2010 the web rejoiced. Known for his egomaniacal all-caps blog posts in the past, Twitter was to be another outlet for the star's rants, raves and non sequiturs. But the 140-character limit was a perfect match for Kanye's poetics, and comedy music duo Paul and Storm had the idea to remix Kanye's tweets with New Yorker cartoons, a match made in Internet heaven.

Popular Pickle Surpasses Nickelback for Facebook Fans
This year a woman set out to answer the age-old question, "Can a pickle be more popular than the platinum-selling band Nickelback?" And lo, the people of Facebook answered with a resounding "Of course!" Unfortunately the pickle in question has left Facebook (was it because of privacy issues?) and Nickelback continues to boast more than 5 million fans on the service. But for a brief time, the Internet celebrated its love of a fermented cucumber.

Laurence's Fishburne Daughter Becomes a Household Name ... for a Sex Tape
You'd think being the child of a famous actor was its own shortcut to stardom, but Laurence Fishburne's daughter was looking for an even faster track to fame when she announced she'd star in an intentional sex tape (when you make it on purpose, it's really just a porn film, no?), modeled on the success of previous sex tape stars Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton, to boost her star power. And it worked for a bit, garnering her headlines across the web.

Rapper Wyclef Jean Tries to Run for Haitian President, Gets Nixed, Gets Death Threats
In the wake of a devastating earthquake in Haiti this year, rapper Wyclef Jean attempted to throw his hat into the ring for president of his native country, sparking a tumultuous mix of support, outrage and death threats. Even 'Clef's ex-Fugees bandmate Pras was vocally against him, and eventually the governing body of Haiti denied the musician's run due to failing residency requirements. Wyclef could always pull a Schwarzenegger and settle for a governorship instead...

Prince: 'The Internet Is Completely Over'
The very fact that you're reading this post disproves Prince's point, but the singer was vocal about the Internet being a passing fad, saying digital devices "fill your head with numbers and that can't be good for you." Far from this being just a wacky soundbite, Prince closed his personal website, forbid iTunes and digital retailers from selling his tracks, and removed all performances from YouTube. The Purple One is still going strong on his convictions, but we're pretty confident he'll turn around, rename himself an @ symbol, and declare the Internet holy ground in 2011.

MIA Tweets Reporters Phone Number
When MIA felt her profile in the New York Times was less than favorable (and focused on her eating french fries and allegedly promoting terrorism) the rapper took revenge on reporter Lynn Hirschberg, tweeting the writer's phone number and calling for vengeance. Hirschberg was overwhelmed with calls and text messages; the New York Times eventually added an editorial note clearing up some aspects of the controversial story, but not the part about the singer's love of french fries.

Zach Dionne's favorite WTF moments:

Fan Vote Aims to Send Justin Bieber to North Korea
A site styling itself "the official My World Tour vote" called for fans to send Bieber to perform anywhere in the world. Anywhere. When it started to look like North Korea would edge out the more reasonable prospect of Israel, we watched, stunned. What first appeared to be hacking or poll-bombing turned out to be an all-out hoax, but damn, wasn't it entertaining to imagine Justin Bieber taking international relations with North Korea to the next level with his grooves and melodious li'l Biebs-voice? (And, for the record, hoax or not, more than 600,000 voters wanted to see Bieber party with Kim Jong-il.)

Every B-List Celebrity Ever Sings 'Let It Be'
Jason Alexander, Carlton from 'Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,' Tonya Harding and the guy who played the young, braces-on-his-legs Forrest Gump never had anything in common ... until this insane video united them via green-screen for a Norweigan TV show promo that had us belting out choruses of WTF.

Frankie Muniz: Actor, Race Car Driver, Rock Drummer?
Yup. We heard the news and got the 'Malcolm in the Middle' star on the phone, talking his new passion as drummer of indie Arizona rockers You Hang Up. This was one of the year's good WTF moments. "I have my own goal: To just enjoy myself," Muniz told us. "I've realized in my limited years that that's what's important." We're down with that.

Mike Tyson Ready to Race Reality Show
...handily delivering us the opportunity to talk to pigeon experts (fanciers, to you, friend) about Iron Mike. "Almost everybody into pigeons is eccentric," the president of a prominent pigeon fanciers association tells us. "Those guys are absolutely berserk." But ear-biting berserk?

Nike Resurrects Tiger Woods' Late Father for an Ad
The mega-corporation towed the line between highbrow WTF and OMG-that-is-so-sleazy WTF, digging up an audio clip of Tiger's late father Earl to fashion a spectral heart-to-heart about the golfer's adultery scandals. Still creeps us out.

Refunds Offered After Steve Martin Live Event 'Didn't Gel'
In a spectacular display of dropping the ball, the 92nd Street Y in New York City offered $50 refunds to all 900 attendees at a Steve Martin event. The Y and its audience apparently thought Martin discussing art was just too boring, essentially ignoring the fact he was making the appearance in tandem with the release of his new book about ... art. Fortunately, Martin handled the snub with total class and humor in an op-ed for the New York Times.

WWII Bombs Found in Lake Near George Clooney's Home
Military experts were called in to retrieve a cache of unexploded World War II bombs discovered a stone's throw away from the actor's villa on Lake Como in Italy. The arsenal included aircraft bombs, mortars, and hand grenades. Awesome!

Tell Us What Stories Made You Say WTF in 2010!

Tags: 2010 in review, WTF

Comments

(6)

Tuesday 28 December

By Clair

High Rank Vote down Vote up Report this

It's - without further "ado", not "adieu".

Wednesday 29 December

By Allie826

Vote down Vote up Report this

Actually, you can say it either way. Adieu is how you say it in french, ado is how you say it in english. Google it.

By What?

Highest Rank Vote down Vote up Report this

You forgot to mention the "BIGGEST WTF MOMENT" and that is naming Kim Kar-gash-ian Popeaters celebrity of the year !

By Beth

My two WTF moments in 2010 were....Elton John singing at Rush Limbaugh's wedding and Pat Robertson wanting to legalize small quantities of marijuana. LOL

By Marsha

Prince and the whole youtube thing aggravates me, however I can't blame him for wanting people to go to the record store and purchase his cds.

I agree to a certain degree, however, I think Prince alienates a lot of his fans that way. There are only a handful of places you can even purchase music in stores. The internet has put a lot of places out of business. There isn't much he can really do to change it. He needs to keep up with the times. It's especially annoying since he came out with an album called 20Ten that I just heard about today. The article listed it as one of the best of the year. Not only could you not purchase it on-line but you couldn't purchase it in stores either. You had to reply to newspaper adds to get it, from what I understand. The internet, unfortunately has put a lot of those out of business as well. A lot of us turn to the internet specifically for our news. In my opinion it's like a slap in the face to his fans. To me, he seems to take himself waaay to seriously and people allow it. It just doesn't make sense to me. Why wouldn't he want to make his God-given gift more readily available? Especially for the people who have been loyal fans since the 80's. Super annoying. He's alwasy been super annoying. I think that's why I've never been a super-fan, although I do think he's talented.

Page 1 of 1