5 moments that broke the internet in 2022
Updated: Dec 15, 2022
The world just keeps getting weirder... or at least that’s what you might think after a few minutes on the internet.
In celebration of 2022 (finally) coming to an end, we’ve picked out five moments that broke the internet and looked into what made each one so gossip-worthy online.
1. Lettuce vs Downing Street
It’s bound to be an A-level history exam question in a few decades time.
2022 saw the UK go through THREE different Prime Ministers, with Liz Truss making the record for shortest ever time in the post with just 44 days of leading the country.
However, while the political elite were playing musical chairs at Number 10, the country was more focused on a now-famous vegetable. The Daily Star employed incredible foresight by setting up a live stream which pitted Truss vs a head of lettuce, asking which one will last longest.
As we all know now, the lettuce won the competition, having barely wilted before Truss stepped aside for Rishi Sunak to have his go in the top seat. Is it fair to say that from now on every British leader will live in fear of being bested by a salad base? Only time will tell.
2. What does 'offside' mean?
The FIFA World Cup turns billions of people across the globe into football fanatics every four years, and the 2022 tournament, hosted by Qatar, was no exception.
Of course, cheering for your country is simple, but some of the finer details of the game are a little harder for the casual footy fan to understand. If you need proof of this, all you have to do is look at search trends in the run up to the first game. For example, take a look at the search volume for ‘what is offside’ over the past year:
That massive spike in November is just before the start of the World Cup.
And it isn’t just the offside rules which has left people scratching their heads. Some avid supporters seemed to even struggle with the location of the World Cup. Here’s the search volume for ‘Where is Qatar?’ in the run up to the tournament:
3. The great Twitter exodus
This year saw plenty of people struggling with the cost-of-living crisis, but the squeeze didn’t seem to impact Elon Musk, who was able to buy Twitter for $44 billion (£35.8 billion). Immediately after the massive purchase, the (now former) richest man on earth went about making changes to the platform that not everyone was happy with.