The student news site of Highlands High School

The Hilltopper

The student news site of Highlands High School

The Hilltopper

The student news site of Highlands High School

The Hilltopper

Pop Culture Moments Nobody Will Forget

Since 2020 the world has dealt with some hectic events. With the pandemic starting to end, the 2020 election, mandates keeping us all at home, and so many pop culture moments happening. 

One of the most wild moments from 2021 was when over 50,000 people attended Travis Scott’s concert, Astroworld, which tragically resulted in the death of 10 individuals whose ages ranged from 9 years old to 27 years old. 

This is a very big deal, as the passing of even a single individual at an event should cause an immediate shut down, lawsuits, possible sentences and for sure a very extensive apology and reparations to the loved ones of victims. 

This is not what happened in the case of Scott, as he quickly released his infamous apology, lasting only a few minutes in which he’s holding the phone and rubbing his head with a black and white filter, giving an insincere apology.

Senior Leo Paolucci said: “I think it wasn’t very sicko mode of him.”

Travis Scott during apology video

It’s safe to say nobody had Jojo Siwa becoming a goth music maker on their 2024 bingo card. The former child star of Dance Moms started teasing her new song Karma on her TikTok by showing off her choreography for the song, which was not met with much support at all, becoming a meme within days. 

On top of that, a few days following the release of her song, it was discovered that an artist, Brit Smith had made the same song many years ago and Siwa actually just covered the song and changed a few words, quickly going back on all of her statements about how she wrote it. 

During Siwa’s campaign, she attended an event and was interviewed and was asked the infamous question, “Who is your dream guest on your podcast?” Siwa then responded, “Dream guest on my podcast? Let’s spice things up, one of my exes.” Which she followed by acting shocked and running away from the camera like she had just said something extremely quirky or crazy and was only met with silence by the interviewers, causing this embarrassing moment to go viral.

Junior Cecilia Bargo spoke on Siwa and said: “The whole thing is really weird, she can’t rebrand from a child-like persona. She ripped off Karma from another artist and that was weird.”

Jojo Siwa during interview

Coachella is a big deal every year, with artists of many genres performing, celebrities showing off their creative and interesting outfits, and people getting too into the celebration while making trouble. 

This year pop artist Lana Del Rey performed, which brought a lot of her fans there. 

Her fans are mostly girls with more comfortable lifestyles, not too interested in high-energy environments. During the event, rapper Ken Carson performed as well, his concerts being more akin to mosh pits, all of his fans were yelling out his lyrics and jumping around. 

This led to the Lana Del Rey fans screaming out to turn off the music and stop because it was loud and they didn’t like it, leading to many people in internet comment sections making fun of them for being upset about loud music at a music festival.

Freshman Jeremy Wartman said: “Just like he said if you [were] scared you should’ve stayed home.”

Lana Del Rey fans in the crowd at Coachella

The Oscars is another event that is always a big deal each year, and in 2022 we had a pretty unforgettable one. Chris Rock, a comedian was making jokes on stage when he made a joke calling Jada Pinkett Smith, Will Smith’s wife, GI Jane, referring to her not having hair due to suffering from alopecia. 

Smith himself enjoyed this joke, chuckling until his wife shot him a dirty look, to which Smith walked up to the stage, slapping Rock and returning to his seat while shouting at him: “Keep my wife’s name out your [explict] mouth.” 

This was obviously extremely important and went viral immediately, but the comedian never chose to press charges and nothing ever came out of the situation.

Will Smith slapping Chris Rock

The whole “Baby Gronk rizzing up Livvy Dunne” joke has been around for a while but has grown more in popularity as part of “brain rot” humor in which people, usually teenagers, simply repeat phrases or words associated with funny things or videos. 

Rizz” is short for charisma, referring to being a smooth talker or having a “game.” 

In an interview, Gronk spoke to popular gymnast, Livvy Dunne to which the interviewer said: “Baby Gronk just rizzed up Livvy Dunne,” even though Baby Gronk is an 11-year-old talented football player that rose quickly in popularity on social media.

Livvy Dunne and Baby Gronk
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