Last week I took you through 5 stories that made the Dulture top 10 (in no particular order). This week I take you through the remaining 5. You’ll want to scroll down to the very bottom to see my top story this year in Dulture.

And, oh, keep enjoying your awkward yet quiet week between Christmas and New Years because before you know it you’ll be ending all of your emails in the next couple weeks with “Happy New Year!” Until then, back to binge watching Iron Chef.

January: SBF’s Newsletter Collecting Dust

Back at the beginning of the year the implosion that is FTX was hot and heavy. Celebrities who endorsed the crypto trading platform were supposedly out millions of dollars, SBF was hiding in the Bahamas, and a company that was worth billions filed for bankruptcy. And what was the company’s CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, doing?

Starting a Substack newsletter of course!

SBF had created a newsletter to try explain how much money was actually still within FTX. At the time the worry was how was anyone ever going to get get their money back as a result of the crypto exchange crumbling. All the while the US Government was in full on investigation mode of FTX and Bankman-Fried. You would think you would stay as quiet and collected as possible while the feds investigate you for one of the biggest fraud crimes in US history…you would think.

Meanwhile SBF is currently awaiting sentencing which takes place this March. If the judge follows the precedence set for the 7 conspiracy and fraud charges he’s been convicted of, Sam Bankman-Fried would be sentenced to 115 years in prison.

March: Memphis Gunslinger

You know what’s stupider than starting a public newsletter while the government investigates you? Being one of the most popular NBA players in the world and going on social media and flashing a gun after you’ve already been warned and penalized once. Enter: Ja Morant.

Back in March Ja Morant was suspended for 8 games without pay after video surfaced of him on Instagram live brandishing a gun at a Colorado night strip club. At the same time his signature shoe with Nike was on verge of officially launching - talk about shooting yourself in the foot (so many puns, oh my). The league was up in arms wondering why a star player like Morant, who is seen by all NBA analysts as the future of the league, would do such a stupid thing.

And then later in May dude did it AGAIN while driving in a car - yes showing off a gun on Intagram. FACE PALM. The Memphis Grizzlies had no choice but to suspend him again for what seemed like indefinitely but what turned out to be allllllllllllllll the way until December 19th. The Grizzlies were 4-0 with Morant back in the line up but the Nuggets just slapped them by 37 points yesterday.

What I’m really wondering is how did Ja get to keep his shoe with Nike. Oh wait, he’s potentially the Gen Z replacement for Lebron and KD. Nevermind… 🤑 

April: The BEST video game movie of all time

There, I said it! I don’t care what you think! When I left the theatre after watching The Super Mario Bros. Movie, I wanted more. No other video game movie has ever done that for me. Not Mortal Kombat, not Street Fighter (ugh!), and not any of the Resident Evil films. The Super Mario Bros. movie is so well done because it stayed true to the characters, the franchise, and the game.

The film had one job: make it feel like you were in “Mario World”, as if you were playing the game.

It achieved this and so much more. Rightfully so the film has been nominated for Best Motion Picture - Animated, Cinematic and Box Office Achievement, and Best Original Song - Motion Picture (PEEEEEACH, you’re so coooool…) at the Golden Globes in just under 2 weeks.

The same way back in the early to mid 2000’s Marvel really began to nail their comic characters on the big screen, it looks like Illumination + Nintendo have cracked the code on bringing their game characters to life in the movies. If you’re a fan of Mario and Nintendo and you haven’t watched this film, you simply ARE NOT a fan.

March: What happened to the $1M BTC prediction?

Remember Balaji Srinivasan? Of course you don’t. No one does - unless you’re a crypto nerd obsessed with Silicon Valley on X (Twitter). Back in March Balaji had this stupid bet with someone on Twitter that Bitcoin would hit $1M by June. The idea was that the world would rename Bitcoin, “Digital Gold”, which would then inspire people around the world to invest heavily and buy up the digital asset, thus increasing the price to $1 million.

All of Twitter went nuts over this prediction given Balaji was the CTO for Coinbase at one point and well respected as a successful entrepreneur in the crypto space.

Suffice to say, BItcoin did not go to ONE MILLION DOLLARS.

In fact, Bitcoin hit $40K CAD at the end of June and has since risen to $56K as of this month. And while Balaji was way off in his prediction, he was able to ruffle enough feathers on social media as his X (Twitter) following rose by 143K followers from March to April this year. I had this as one of my top Dulture stories as I’m not going to lie, I had some decent money invested in Bitcoin at the time and it would’ve been nice to see it hit $1M USD. But as the old saying goes, if it sounds too good to be true…

THIS YEAR IN DULTURE’S #1 STORY FOR 2023…

July: The night social media felt new again

Back in July we all downloaded Threads and realized real quick, it was basically Twitter but with less features and no way to sort your timeline. HOWEVER, if you downloaded it on the day it was released to the general public and used it that night, you would have been met with some serious social media nostalgia, of which was a brief breath of fresh air on the internet.

Threads was seen as this giant threat to Twitter when it achieved 30 million downloads on its first day and 100 million users in just 5 days. Clearly FOMO hit the internet hard and everyone had to see what this thing was all about. People soon realized Threads was just Twitter without the je ne sais quoi. Twitter can be a giant cesspool of dismay and raunchy memes at the best of times but the one thing it does right is it informs you of what’s going on if you let it.

When I first started using Threads it felt like Facebook circa 2006 meets AOL chatrooms in 1999. Everyone was jumping on board rapidly but no one really knew what to do with it other than connect with other people - and it was kinda fun to connect with strangers as we all felt like we were in the same boat not knowing what to do with the app. The first night using Threads felt like a true time warp back to when the internet was run by Geocities and Netscape. If I knew I could get that feeling back from using another app I’d truly do it in a heartbeat.

The world quickly woke up when they realized Threads was a poor man’s clone of Twitter with no real use around it. Not to mention the 80% decline in daily active users within the same month of its launch. Ouch.

Currently Threads still lives on my phone but I haven’t opened the app in weeks. I’m sure it’s a similar statement on your end too.

And there you have it folks! I hope you enjoyed This year in Dulture.
Thank you for reading throughout the year. I’ll be testing out new ways to feature stories in the new year - get ready for Dulture Year 2.
See you in 2024.
😎