The Yearly Obituary - Things We Lost in 2014

This was the year that someone finally found a way to use social media effectively by encouraging people to sacrifice a touch of dignity along with a bit of cash by dumping a bucket of ice cold water over their heads.
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1) Privacy
2014 could well be the year that privacy became weaponised. It began with The Fappening; the deeply intrusive cloud raid that introduced us first hand to Jennifer Lawrence's breasts and gave food for thought to an entire generation of teenage boys after lights out, and then ended with the North Koreans (allegedly, but who the hell are we kidding) holding the very concept of privacy hostage.

Their tactic of embarrassing the s**t out of key figures to deprive them of public sympathy was brutally effective, and ultimately only failed because the deeply human fear of having ones opinion on Angelina Jolie shared with the rest of the world was eclipsed by a sudden rush of patriotic fervour, one that made watching The Interview an act of defiance and Seth Rogen and James Franco icons of free speech.

Who the hell saw that happening back in 2013?

2) Faith in National Borders
One growth business in 2014 was map writing. First the Russians got squiffy with the Ukrainian border, using all the style and finesse of a schoolyard bully grabbing a smaller kids ball and refusing to give it back despite their mother clearly writing their name on it. Then I.S appeared seemingly from nowhere to run roughshod over an entire region.

When it comes to IS, not since the Nazis have we faced such an unrepentantly, almost comically evil bad guy; from taking pleasure in lopping off heads, to making bizarre and unilateral proclamations about who exactly has rights (them) and who hasn't (pretty much everyone else) and somehow managing to place even Syria's government on the side of the angels by virtue of them being mildly less psychotic than the opposition.

3) Faith in Planes
Nothing should ever simply disappear. It goes against the very heart of the information age. So for an airliner to vanish without a trace revealed exactly how fragile we are when the last dregs of land vanish behind us and only the big blue remains.

For this to be followed by first an airliner being shot down, and then in the last breaths of the year another plane, this time from AirAsia, lost without a trace creates questions about how big our world really still is.

4) Faith in the Internet
Apparently one woman's ass and a bottle of champagne can break it.

5) Our Ability to Stay dry
This was the year that someone finally found a way to use social media effectively by encouraging people to sacrifice a touch of dignity along with a bit of cash by dumping a bucket of ice cold water over their heads.

Somehow rather than frown and say "you what?", we all just reached for the ice cube tray.

6) Our Ability to Notice History
NASA landed a ship on a freaking Comet!!! But did anyone notice? Only the people at NASA who landed a ship on a freaking comet! To be fair the act was overshadowed slightly by the mildly inappropriate hula shirt the man driving it was wearing, but priorities people. That guy could wear a picture of Putin giving a Fonzy thumbs up on his shirt with the caption 'Vlad is cool' and he'd still deserve a round of applause and a beer bought him because he landed a ship on a freaking comet!!!

7) Robin Williams
There are few things that can truly claim to be world treasures; the pyramids, the Galapagos Islands, The Great Wall of China, but only one could improvise up a storm and leave you needing a new kidney from laughing so hard.

The tragedy of losing this man was made even more poignant because in a year that brought us some of the above we needed his humour more than ever. All we can do now is raise a glass, choose your favourite moment, be it Mork calling Orson, A Genie doing a Jack Nicholson impression, or the kindly doc in Goodwill Hunting, and say we miss you Rob, we always will.

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