What Trended This Year? Brexit, U.S. Election and Adele

 

This is What Trended This Year:

Do you remember that unavoidable song from last year?

It was “Hello,” by British singer Adele.

People loved Adele and her song.

So when she appeared on comedian¹ James Corden’s late-night television show, lots of people watched. And many who did not watch the show that night watched her appearance later on YouTube.

Their viewing made Adele’s turn on Corden’s popular “Carpool Karaoke” segment the most popular YouTube video of 2016. The video of Adele riding in the car with Corden and singing her hit songs was played almost 140 million times in 2016.

The most popular Twitter topics of the year were: the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, the U.S. Election, PokemonGo, the Euro 2016 soccer tournament, the Oscars and Brexit.

If you would like to look back at the Olympics and the European soccer tournament, please visit our story about the 2016 year in sports.

U.S. election

In the U.S., Donald Trump² won the election for president on November 8. The months before and after the election were filled with online commentary about the candidates.

Early in the year, the election news revolved⁴ around the Republican and Democratic Party primaries. Republican candidates — including Trump, Marco Rubio, Ted⁵ Cruz, Ben Carson, John Kasich and Jeb Bush – were trying to rally voters around the country. Trump won enough votes and delegates to be named as his party’s candidate at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio in July.

Hillary Clinton won the Democratic Party’s nomination⁶ at the convention in Philadelphia after a competitive series of primaries with Vermont senator Bernie Sanders.

Clinton’s and Trump’s primary victories set up a heated contest from late summer through Election Day. No tweet summed up the rivalry⁷ more than Clinton’s “delete your account” tweet to Trump.

Clinton’s tweet came after Trump wrote: “Obama just endorsed⁹ Crooked¹⁰ Hillary. He wants four more years of Obama — but nobody else does!”

The tweet came out on June 9 and was liked and retweeted over 1.2 million times.

Another important question arose during the debates between Clinton and Trump. It was: “Are you a nasty woman or a bad hombre?” The question had social media users casting their votes and explaining why they considered themselves “nasty women” or “bad hombres.”

Pokemon Go

People around the world will remember the summer of 2016 for the PokemonGo craze. The peak came in July, when people looking for Pokemon characters gathered on the beach near Los Angeles, California; in front of monuments in Washington, D.C.; and in a city square in Taiwan.

Even an Olympic athlete made news when he spent a lot of money looking for Pokemon characters in Brazil.

The craze took some strange and unfortunate turns. Social media reported on people being robbed, finding dead bodies, causing car accidents and suffering injuries while they searched for Pikachu, Charizard and other characters.

But good things came out of the craze, too: some people said they lost weight because the hunt made them leave the house and walk many kilometers.

The game is less popular now than it was then, but it is still being updated and is now available in over 120 countries.

What is Aleppo?

Disasters and conflicts around the world took their places on trending lists, too. Many people were sad to see the damage suffered by historic Italian cities Amatrice and Accumoli after an earthquake on August 24. The earthquake killed 300 people.

Big hurricanes struck countries in and around the Caribbean Sea. In October, Hurricane Matthew killed 500 people in Haiti and caused damage in southeastern U.S. states.

A disaster that prompted a large amount of concern came from Syria. The country is in the middle of a civil war. It has been going on for about five years. Hundreds of thousands of people have died.

Much of the recent focus is around the city of Aleppo, the second-largest city in Syria.

One of the saddest images of the year caught the attention of many social media users. The video of a small Syrian boy covered in dust and blood sitting in the back of an ambulance made many people understand how difficult life is for people in Aleppo. The video came from the Aleppo Media Center. It has over 4 million views.

Britain exits EU

Many people did not believe it would happen, but British citizens voted on June 23 to leave the European Union. More than 30 million people voted; 52 percent chose to exit. Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to stay in the EU.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, who supported the “stay” campaign, resigned after the vote was counted. Theresa May took his place.

May said “Brexit means Brexit,” and in March she will start the legal process to leave the EU. The process may take as long as two years.

After the vote, some “leave” voters said they wished they could change their votes. They were surprised their side won.

And those were the top five viral moments in 2016.

And that’s What Trended This Year.

I’m Dan Friedell and I'm Kelly Jean Kelly.

Words in This Story

segment – n. a part of a television show

hit – n. something that is very successful

tournament – n. a sports competition or series of contests that involves many players or teams and that usually continues for at least several days

revolve³ – v. to have (someone or something) as a main subject or interest

rally – v. to cause (people) to join together to publicly support or oppose something

delegate – n. a person who is chosen or elected to vote or act for others

primary – n. an election in which members of the same political party run against each other for the chance to be in a larger and more important election

sum-up – v. the act of telling information again using fewer words

delete – v. to remove (something, such as words, pictures, or computer files) from a document, recording¹¹, computer, etc.

endorse⁸ – v. to publicly or officially say that you support or approve of (someone or something)

nasty – adj. unpleasant and unkind

craze – n. something that is very popular for a period of time

peak – adj. at the highest point or level

ambulance – n. a vehicle used for taking hurt or sick people to the hospital especially in emergencies

viral – adj. spreading very quickly to many people especially through the Internet

1 comedian   

n.喜剧演员；滑稽演员

参考例句：

• The comedian tickled the crowd with his jokes.喜剧演员的笑话把人们逗乐了。
• The comedian enjoyed great popularity during the 30's.那位喜剧演员在三十年代非常走红。

2 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

3 revolve   

vi.(使)旋转；循环出现

参考例句：

• The planets revolve around the sun.行星绕着太阳运转。
• The wheels began to revolve slowly.车轮开始慢慢转动。

4 revolved   

v.（使）旋转( revolve的过去式和过去分词 )；细想

参考例句：

• The fan revolved slowly. 电扇缓慢地转动着。
• The wheel revolved on its centre. 轮子绕中心转动。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 ted   

vt.翻晒，撒，撒开

参考例句：

• The invaders gut ted the village.侵略者把村中财物洗劫一空。
• She often teds the corn when it's sunny.天好的时候她就翻晒玉米。

6 nomination   

n.提名，任命，提名权

参考例句：

• John is favourite to get the nomination for club president.约翰最有希望被提名为俱乐部主席。
• Few people pronounced for his nomination.很少人表示赞成他的提名。

7 rivalry   

n.竞争，竞赛，对抗

参考例句：

• The quarrel originated in rivalry between the two families.这次争吵是两家不和引起的。
• He had a lot of rivalry with his brothers and sisters.他和兄弟姐妹间经常较劲。

8 endorse   

vt.(支票、汇票等)背书，背署；批注；同意

参考例句：

• No one is foolish enough to endorse it.没有哪个人会傻得赞成它。
• I fully endorse your opinions on this subject.我完全拥护你对此课题的主张。

9 endorsed   

vt.& vi.endorse的过去式或过去分词形式v.赞同( endorse的过去式和过去分词 )；在（尤指支票的）背面签字；在（文件的）背面写评论；在广告上说本人使用并赞同某产品

参考例句：

• The committee endorsed an initiative by the chairman to enter discussion about a possible merger. 委员会通过了主席提出的新方案，开始就可能进行的并购进行讨论。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The government has broadly endorsed a research paper proposing new educational targets for 14-year-olds. 政府基本上支持建议对14 岁少年实行新教育目标的研究报告。 来自《简明英汉词典》

10 crooked   

adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的

参考例句：

• He crooked a finger to tell us to go over to him.他弯了弯手指，示意我们到他那儿去。
• You have to drive slowly on these crooked country roads.在这些弯弯曲曲的乡间小路上你得慢慢开车。

11 recording   

n.录音，记录

参考例句：

• How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间？
• I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。