Let's go out on some schadenfreude!

So like, it's New Year's again. That festive holiday where we drink, pretend that we're going to suddenly break bad habits and turn our lives around and most importantly take a somber account of all those we lost in 2015.

'Happy New Year's everybody! What a year, am I right?'

-The Grim Specter of Death

So long Don Featherstone, the world
is slightly less tacky with out you.

Did I say 'all the people?' That's a lie. We only sit around and remember the famous people. The planet's population is something like seven billion, so the vast majority of us will shuffle off our mortal coil in total anonymity. Instead we reflect on those who have made an impact on the lives of others by say playing Al on Happy Days or being the guy that invented Pink Flamingos. Nobody cares about your 8th grade English teacher. What? I'm sure she inspired in you a life-long love of reading, but since she didn't write Hollywood Wives, or found Motörhead, you're probably not going to see her in anyone's 'celebrating those we've lost' montages.

Just...what the fuck...

In music, B. B. King died, as did Scott Weiland of the Stone Temple Pilots and James 'All movie scores from the 80's and 90's' Horner. Actors Omar Sharif, Dick Van Patton and the extravagantly be-eyebrowed Robert Loggia are also dead. Batgirl Yvonne Craig died as did Nicholas Smith, the last surviving cast member from Are You Being Served? Oh, and so did Wes Craven, the writer/director of A Nightmare on Elm Street. Not dead is the guy that came up with Human Centipede. I'm just pointing it out.

Yeoman Rand was in charge of serving
coffee to the crew because sexism.

Trekkies lost Grace Lee Whiney who played yeoman Rand and Bruce Hyde who played lieutenant Riley, the ship's official Irish stereotype. Now brace yourself for this one, Leonard Nimoy. Yeah, Spock died this February, can you believe it? It's been a rough year for nerds. We also say so long to novelist Sir Terry Pratchett, and actor-vampire-wizard-Sith and notable metal enthusiast Sir Christopher Lee. In fictional character deaths, we also lost-oh wait, probably shouldn't say that. You know who I'm talking about. Anyway, the way I see it, the universe owes us a solid in 2016. So maybe, I don't know, aliens?

Pictured: the worst.

In abstract concepts, the last lingering shred of respect I might have had for American conservatives was brutally hatcheted to death by Donald Trump when his poll numbers hit the high 30's among Republican voters. Yup, it looks like the party of Lincoln is seriously going to run a racist, misogynistic gameshow host in November. Look, it's not like I'm ever going to vote Republican, it's just I'd like to be able to respect them. And, well, this guy, he's just, just the worst.

Journalism also died this year when the landlord of the townhouse where the San Bernardino shooters lived, opened the doors and let the media in to, I shit you not, rifle through the dead suspect's worldly possessions and speculate wildly on how Muslim they were.

All that was missing was the Benny Hill theme music. 

The English Language:
435 AD-2015 AD
'...sleepy face in peace sign...'

The Oxford English Dictionary lost whatever respectability it might have had left by choosing a goddamn smily face as its word of the year. Would-be cyborgs lost this century's most obnoxious eyewear when Google quietly killed Google Glass for being both ridiculous looking and kind of dangerous to wear. Oh, and we learned that bacon is secretly killing us. It's not, but we learned it anyway and then promptly forgot about it when we remembered that it's delicious and that we kind of hate science.

Oh, and no retrospective on what we, as a civilization, have lost would be complete without remembering that 2015 was the year that the Jesus-given right of homophobes to live in a gay marriage-less world was brutally murdered by 55.5% of the Supreme Court. Yup, we're really feeling for those people. Anyway Happy New Year's!

I'm just kidding. Seriously though, fuck those guys.