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The Top WTF Moments of 2014
Well 2014 has come to a close. It was…well it was a year. A weird, occasionally amusing, mostly f’ed-up year. And now that the year has come to a close, we thought we’d give you one more dose of WTF. Without further ado, here’s a timeline of the biggest WTF moments of 2014.
February: Dexter Copycat
In February, a 19-year-old woman who’d clearly been watching way too much Dexter admitted to killing somewhere between 22-100 people, we’re still not really sure.
Nevermind the fact that that would be an incredibly impressive resume for a 19-year-old serial killer, the entire story was weird and didn’t add up, and definitely a total WTF moment. Read the full story here.
April: Cliven Bundy
In April, conservatives found a new cause celebre in the hands of poorly-vetted Cliven Bundy. Bundy’s beef with the government was pretty simple–he didn’t think he should have to get a permit to allow his cattle to graze on Federal land. However, the entire thing led to an insane standoff between Bundy, his friends, and some federal agents. He became the poster boy for the small-time farmer standing up to the oppressive government…and then he said a whole bunch of racist shit, including that black people may have been better off as slaves and all of his former friends ran very, very far away.
Read the full story here and here.
May: Donald Sterling
Speaking generally of racism, one of the most WTF situations was definitely the whole Donald Sterling controversy. He is, of course, the flaming asshole former-owner of the Clippers. An audio recording features Sterling asking his then-girlfriend things like “It bothers me a lot that you want to broadcast that you’re associating with black people. Do you have to?” Oh Donald Sterling, the fact that racists like you still exist and make a lot of money is a giant WTF is my book.
June: Slenderman Stabbing
In June, two preteen girls were arrested for stabbing their friend 19 times. They claimed that they were forced to do so by “Slenderman,” an internet character/urban myth. As soon as the horrific incident occurred, a lot of people wondered whether or not these girls were suffering from mental illness, could actually go to trial, and what exactly caused them to become so obsessed with “Slenderman.” As of now, they have been declared competent to stand trial. But there’s no doubt that the entire thing was incredibly creepy and very much WTF. Read the full story here.
July: Inappropriate Evidence
In the slow, hot, days of July, one story really made us scratch our heads. In Manassas, Virginia, a teenage boy was accused of sending a sexually explicit video, starring himself, to his girlfriend. But there wasn’t really any identifying information in the video, so the police tried to figure out whether or not it was a video of the young man. The only way they could think to do so was to take him into a hospital, induce an erection, and play a game of spot-the-differences with the erect penis in the video and the 17-year-old in their police station.
August: Homophobes…I Mean Homophones
In August, we saw the story of an employee at Norman Global Language Centre, Tim Torkildson, who was fired for writing a blog post on homophones. Homophones, being, of course, words that sound alike but having different meanings. Homophones, however, does contain the prefix “homo” and the Norman Global Language Center worried that it could be linked to gay sex. Never mind the horribly bigoted and ridiculous reasoning there, that’s shitty logic all around. Read the full story here.
September: Urban Outfitters and Kent State
Urban Outfitters–your go-to destination for a flower hair crown and general Coachella-inspired fast fashion–made headlines in September when it attempted to sell this sweatshirt:
Urban Outfitters criticized over blood-red-stained Kent State sweatshirt http://t.co/s1k9oMDLZV #Ebay #Atlanta pic.twitter.com/pYYXVcUTk3
— The Social Mailman (@SocialMailman) September 18, 2014
Yup, that’s what you think it is. A Kent State sweatshirt, spattered with blood stains. Whether Urban Outfitters wanted to generate some controversy–and publicity–or the people who greenlit this genuinely have their heads so far up their asses they’ve lost their eyesight, I’m not sure. Either way, it was certainly a major WTF moment. Read the full story here and here.
October: California Highway Patrol
In October, a few California Highway Patrol officers were caught playing an incredibly sick game. They were stealing nude photos off of suspects’ phones while the phones were being held in evidence, and then sharing them among themselves. Oh, and then they’d text offensive sexist and lewd things to each other about said photos. Great job guys.
November: No Feeding the Homeless
In November, some attempts at good deeds ended up going horribly wrong. Two pastors and a 90-year-old man got in trouble with the law for feeding the homeless in Florida. They were all cited for violating a Fort Lauderdale ordinance, which apparently forbids anyone from feeding homeless people. While I guess it could be considered some sort of public health problem, that seems a harsh law for those trying to be a good Samaritan. Read the full story here.
It’s truly been a WTF kind of year–here’s to 2015 being better.
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