Your memories of 2016: The Good, the Bad and the Trumpy

Just last week, many of us were heralding the long-awaited arrival of 2017. We opined that this was a year promised to us by the Fates, who, seeing how much death and destruction 2016 had wrought, must needs pity us and hand us a gilded new year saying, “Sure, they can have this one.”

Of course, that vision didn’t last. Presi-don’t-elect Donald Trump has managed to take the piss out of 2017 in record time, leaving most of us wondering whether we ought to have opted to be cryogenically frozen and ported back a few years for a do-over.

But we gained a little perspective near the end of 2016 at our sixth Annual No Office Holiday Party in December, where we put up two signs (both alike in dignity): They read FUCK 2016 and FUCK YEAH 2016, respectively. We invited partygoers to write down their best and worst memories of the year in Sharpie. And what we discovered was: Some folks had a pretty good year.

The case for 2016 wouldn’t necessarily hold up in court, it’s true. The year wore many faces, none of which were particularly kind. On a cultural scale, 2016 was the Executioner. On a political one, the lawless grifter. And for many of us in our personal lives, 2016 was just a mafioso collecting in cruel ways on some unknown debt. the But aside from all the anthropomorphized awfulness, 2016 was just a time we all happened to be alive for.

Many of our heroes died, but future ones were surely born. We lost an election, and gained a new understanding of how deep our differences were. Where some of us got our hearts broken, others broke a cycle of misery at our jobs. We’ve rounded up the Good, the Bad and the… well, the Trump, of 2016, as per what you wrote on our signs.

Here are the reasons you hated 2016:

“FUCK 2016”

 – FUCK TRUMP
– Fuck Putin
– Fuck getting broken up with
– Fuck liars
– Fuck Tidal existing
– Fuck brain cancer
– RIP Bowie
– Space men dying: RIP David Bowie, RIP John Glen
– RIP Leonard Cohen & Gene Wilder
– RIP Prince
– Can people stop dying, please?
– Alan Rickman!
– RIP Harambe
– …Bowie…Prince…Phife…Trump 🙁
– 2016, I’ve renamed my hair line after you.
– Bees are dying at an alarming rate.
– My dad got cancer.
– My grandma kicked the bucket.
– Me too, #retweet
– Me too 🙁
– Me too 😢 last week
– WTF White ppl?!
– Bad friendships, liars, cheaters users and losers and oh yeah, bad  alcohol
– Why everyone so dumb + mean?
– Dead end jobs, horrible bosses and soulless work
– Horrible Bosses 2 was a bad movie
– My boss is racist
– Realized ya family racist AF
– Help wanted: My parents voted for Trump. Yup.
– WTF WHITE PPL?!
– Trans confusion
– My country hates women
– MEN
– DUDES
– #SavetheVagina
– The declining state of our world.
– ERDOGAN
– WORK FUCKING SUCKS
– All my financiers dropped out… back to entry level #millennial
– F.U. 2016, you made me poorer!
– I’m broke AF
– Someone plz hire me 🙁
– iPhone 7 plus, am I rite?
– The “big C” & adulting
– Pizzagate
– It did happen here.
– Fuck Trump Fuck Trump Fuck Fuck Fuck
– Got fuckin’ robbed
– I got TWO root canals
– My acupuncturist forgot to take my needles out
– Parasite from Asia 🙁
– Pregnancy scare
– Pregnant Lyft driver award thing
– My sugar daddy took me to Spain and dumped me
– Alon gave me the clap 🙁
– Nick Romano broke my pelvis
– Anxiety on planes ✈️️  💔
– #StillfeeltheBern
– HRC 🙁
– Liberals who couldn’t get it up 2 support HRC
– Obama…don’t leave
– Kill your neighborhood fascist (literally) (actually kill them)
– Brexit / Trump / Bowie / GOP Senate / GOP House / RIP Obama Legacy
– 311 was an inside job / Legalize Ranch
– Student loans 💔

And here are the reasons you loved it:

“FUCK YEAH 2016”

 – Union health insurance
– Moonlight
– The continued pop dominance of Carly Rae Jepsen
– Serial Season 2
– Hell yeah Boaty Mc. Boatface
– 🐝🐝LEMONADE YASSSSS!🐝🐝
– ^^I wrote my karma album this year, too!
– I graduated!
– Got a real job! ❤️️
– Won the lottery 😊
– Following my dream of running my biz 😊
– I write for a living now 😊
– I FINALLY GOT PUBLISHED!
– Got a masters in archaeology!
– PhD
– Dolly Parton is still alive
– Don’t fucking touch Liza
– Bill fucking Murray
– & Betty White!
– & Morgan Freeman!
– We lost the guy who made Big Mac ❤️️
– Killing it on Halloween 2016
 – Birthdays are pretty cool!
– I talked to John Waters on the phone
– Selfie with Lin Manuel Miranda
– Ted Cruz is the Zodiac Killer
– Overwatch GOTY
– Pokémon Go! Wut up summer ’16 ➡️️  only 30 Pokémon away!
– Cubs win World Series (1 year later)
– Chicago / DC / Bahamas / NOLA
– 2nd trip to EDC Las Vegas
– Still alive & still employed. Thx Obama!
– Found a new hero in Hillary
– New woman!
– I met a cute gentleman
– Got laid (more than once!)
– No pregnancy scares
– I met my soulmate, and he’s super hot
– Moved in with my sweetheart
– She said YES!
– I got married at sleepaway camp!
– New life w/ baby & husband & job❤️️ ❤️️ ❤️️

– I lost my job & my bf on the same day. Then my fish died. I wrote this on the wrong sign, #mybad
– Haven’t punched my boss in the throat…yet
– Slack
– #Bitmoji
– Quick wrap-up Friday…new job Monday! Fast one bro 😊
– Quit my dumb ass job
– Quit my dead-end job to travel the world & get my groove back
– Moved to NYC — fuck yeah!
– Kittehs & moving out
– No mice in ✨ NEW APARTMENT✨
– 12 years of marriage!
– Divorced
– Still ❤️️  NYC
– PAID RENT 12 TIMES
– Paid off all my student loans!
– I made it through
– It’s OVER
– To new beginnings in 2017, I’m ready.

The two lists are roughly equal in length, which just goes to show that amidst all of the low-hanging doom and gloom, there are still some nuggets of happiness and hope to hang on to. One reader took the opportunity, on our FUCK 2016 poster, to offer counsel for 2017. And fwiw, we think they got it just right: “Full throttle in the direction of your dreams. Ya feel.”

Sam is already compiling her FUCK 2017 list. Stay tuned on Twitter: @ahoysamantha

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