The astounding triumphs and epic fails that made up the year all in one place
As we look back on 2016, itâs tempting to dwell on the negatives.
It was a year of record heat, Zika, terror attacks, and an election cycle weâd all like to forget.
But there were high points. Like, umâŠletâs see.
Cleveland was able to cheer. Some guys on the Olympic team werenât questioned by the police. That was cool. And, wellâŠBruce went on tour and killed it.
So we have that.
But if we were to give the year a hashtag, itâd be either #savage or #thestruggleisreal, because itâs been both.
But then weâd stop thinking about hashtags, because weâre adults with jobs who shouldnât be spending so much time on social media.
Hereâs what we were left with. Weâre really looking forward to 2017.
In the year when Zika and ineffective flu vaccines grabbed headlines, it was deaths from opioids that blew up alarmingly.
Unintentional injuries (about a third of which are poisonings, including drug overdoses) are now the top cause of death in men ages 25 to 44.
More and more lives are being saved with cancer immunotherapy.
These treatments use your T-cells to attack cancer, just like they fight invading viruses.
The American Society of Clinical Oncology, getting a jump on awards season, named immunotherapy its Advance of the Year.
We agreeâand in our September issue, we featured three guys who beat cancer thanks to this thrilling new weapon.
Longtime MH readers know weâve been complaining for decades about deceptive food packaging. (Remember our futile search for the Keebler elves? Theyâre a big lie.)
Well, finally the FDA has responded with food labels to make things clearer for consumers.
The useless âcalories from fatâ language is gone. Serving sizes now actually make sense. And a new âadded sugarsâ category will appearâmuch to the horror of Birthday Cake Oreos.
No, not the shake weight. (But hang on to yours, just in case.)
Weâre talking about fan-based cardio machines, which have been around for decades but became the biggest ânewâ thing in fitness in 2016, thanks in part to CrossFit.
Because of the exponential nature of air resistance provided by the fan, these machines have a unique ability to kick your butt.
The harder you row or pedal, the harder the machine pushes back at you, like a vindictive boss.
Try this quick-and-hellish workout: Hop on a fan bike, set its computer to count calories, and incinerate as many as you can in 60 seconds.
Weâre all for dabbing a little BB cream (âblemish balmâ or tinted moisturizer) under our eyes to hide dark circles or a hangover.
But we draw the line at mascara, powder bronzer, and glossy nails and lipsâall concepts that somehow became acceptable in menâs grooming in 2016.
Unless youâre a glam rocker or a drag queen, leave the heavy-handed makeup to Jared Leto.
Thomas Manning, a 64-year-old from Massachusetts, became the first U.S. man to receive a penis transplant.
The original was lost to cancer in 2012, but after a 15-hour surgery (at an estimated cost of $50K to $75K; the surgeons worked for free), he now has a second chance at urinating while standing and maybe (maybe!) having sex someday.
Manningâs doctors are âcautiously optimistic.â
Deodorant for smelly scrotums. Yep: Fresh Balls, Dry Goods, and Comfy Boys are designed to mask the toxic ecosystem allegedly thriving in your pants.
These are not your fatherâs or grandfatherâs testicle deodorants. Thatâs because your father and grandfather didnât use testicle deodorant.
Donât believe us? Ask them. And take a video of their reaction for us.
Pharmacogenomics! (Break it down, sound it out.)
Hereâs the deal: Soon your doctor may be able to check your genes to see how youâll respond to meds, and then tweak the dosage accordingly.
The Mayo Clinic is trying it in people with prostate cancer and coronary artery disease.
Dirty Emojis HD on Android and Sexy-mojis on iOS.
We already know, thanks to a Match survey from early 2015, that singles who regularly use emojis are more likely to have had sex in the previous year.
Now they have a wider range of explicit emojis to express their dirty thoughts. If the thought youâre thinking of texting can only be conveyed via a yellow-ball face with a realistic vagina, then maybe you should keep that thought to yourself.
If thereâs one thing the two sides could never agree on this year, it was which presidential nominee was more evil.
Whether you were pro-Donald or pro-Hillary, you lost a few Facebook friends in the carnage.
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.
Weâre not saying these guys spend their weekends shirtless on a horse, whispering things to each other like, âIâm nefarious? No, dude, youâre nefarious.â
But really, it doesnât take a lot of imagination to picture it.
O.J. Simpson. A documentary and a 10-part docudrama for a trial that ended two decades ago?
Did the glove fit this time?
Biggest Loser weight.
Several former contestants on the NBC reality show gained back some or all of the weight theyâd lost on the show, and a few of them even packed on a fresh new layer of flab.
So this is how we find out that reality television isnât real?
It was a big year for celebrity deaths, for sure.
Muhammad Ali, Prince, David Bowie, Arnold Palmer, Garry Shandling, Merle Haggard, and Gene WildeâŠand even Abe Vigoda, whoâs been erroneously reported as dead every year since 1982, actually died this time, at 94.
But the deaths werenât 2016âs fault. People die and will continue to die every year; some will be famous.
Except Dick Van Dyke. Heâll outlive us all.
Credit Link: Hybrid fast foods! Weâre talking mac and cheese with a Cheetos dusting, chicken fries, Whopperritos, grilled-cheese stuffed-crust pizzaâthe drive-thru horror has reached gut-defying proportions.
Once novelty items, these caloric catastrophes are now mainstream.
Whether it was Donald Trumpâs tiny, incomplete manhood on life-size nude statues, or celebrities like Usher and NBA All-Star Draymond Green âaccidentallyâ posting photos of their schlongs on social media, we learned a lot this year about famous penises that we didnât actually want to know.
Did Adolf Hitler Have a Micropenis? We donât remember asking, but the Internet was abuzz this year with questions and theories about der Fuhrerâs penile situation.
U.S. dairies have truckloads of cheese and no buyers, thanks to European competitors and a strong dollar.
But the USDA has invested in the cheese surplus, spending $20 million for about 11 million pounds.
What will our scrupulously thrifty government do with it? Our guess: The new $20 bill wonât just have a new face on it, itâll now be printed on a tasty new material.
When Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko said in a speech that his citizens should âget undressed and work,â it was probably a slip of the tongue. (âGet undressedâ sounds very similar to âdevelop themselvesâ in Russian.)
But the people of Belarus took their leader at his word, creating the hashtag #getnakedandgotowork and posting nude photos of themselves (with their naughty bits cleverly concealed) on Instagram.
This summer we got not one but two pop-up naked restaurants, in Londonâwhere the waiting list topped 46,000 eager nudistsâand Melbourne, Australia.
The waitstaff were minimally covered.
Imagine the specials: Rump roast? Braised cheeks? All of it nut-free, we trust.
For just $699, the soon-to-be-released Naked 3D Fitness Tracker will assess your naked form and tell you exactly how youâre not desirable.
First it takes a full-body scan, including the humiliating parts you donât see in your bathroom mirror.
Itâs the perfect gift for anybody who needs reminding that theyâre going to die alone and unloved.
Hugh Hefner, 90, sold the Playboy Mansion to the billionaire owner of Hostess, on the condition that he can live there until he dies.
A man who used to be the most envied bachelor in the world is now no different from the college dropout who crashes in his parentsâ basement (if that dropout paid his parents a million dollars a year in rent money).
Credit Link: Mick Jagger, at an exceptionally craggy 73, is not only dating a 29-year-old ballerina (born around the time everybody was saying this Rolling Stone was too old to be a rock-and-roll star anymore) but also announced that he and his young-enough-to-be-his-granddaughter girlfriend are expecting a child, Sir Mickâs eighth kid.
This could be the last time, we donât know.
President Obama called for a public-private mission to Mars, leaving in, oh, 2030 or so.
But weâre eyeing a rocky, Earth-size planet, possibly with an atmosphere and water, that was discovered orbiting Proxima Centauri, the closest star (besides the sun).
Itâs a mere 4.2 light years away, or just 25 trillion miles. So if we leave now and donât make any bathroom stopsâŠ
A former photo retoucher for Victoriaâs Secret revealed that so much of the catalog is Photoshopped that models began arriving at their shoots with âhairy armpitsâ and âstubbly pubes.â
Charlie Sheen.
News of the actorâs HIV-positive status inspired a huge surge in HIV-related Web searchesâincluding a 417 percent increase on the day of his disclosure to the press, according to researchers from San Diego State University.
Those âFeel the Burn?â billboards in L.A. to promote testing for sexually transmitted diseases.
They were clever, sure. But some of us donât want to be reminded of a 75-year-old Brooklyn socialist when considering our sexual health.
Itâs a growing experience.
Like Scott Kelly, you could be 1.5 inches taller in orbit; the lack of gravity helps to stretch the spine.
Better yet, you would be 8.6 milliseconds younger than you were back on planet Earth.
Brittle bones, weak muscles, puffy âmoon face,â and drinking your own recycled piss and sweatâalmost 200 gallons, according to NASA.
Oh, and you also get to collect your own poop in space for research. Fun!
Bruce Springsteen, who broke the four-hour mark in some shows, helped fourth-grader Xabi Glovsky with a personalized note for his teacher.
âXabi has been out very late rocking & rolling,â the note read. âPlease excuse him if he is tardy.â
When Lauryn Hill was more than two hours late to her own concert in Atlanta, she turned to Facebook to lamely attempt to explain her tardiness.
She claimed she was âaligning my energy with the time.â
What the hell does that even mean? And will our boss buy it? At least when Spinal Tap was late to a gig, it was because of drugs and groupies.
Kit and Ace washable cashmere and Leviâs dirt-resistant Commuter jeans.
The mostly rayon sweater (11 percent cashmere) can be machine washed and tumble dried without shrinking into a bib.
The jeansâ water-resistant coating repels rain, red wine, and eggplant parm like a force field.
Scoring tickets to Hamilton.
Scoring tickets to a Cosby stand-up show.
In their selfless pursuit of knowledge to help us make healthier decisions, they: breathed polluted Beijing air and got fat because of it; were exposed to radio cellphone radiation; got stoned and then accused of being lazy; and took anti-anxiety medicine, which made them less empathetic to other ratsâ problems.
Leicester City, the Bad News Bears of European soccer, were given 5,000-to-1 odds of becoming Premier League champions, and then they went and won it all anyway.
The only other 5,000-to-1 odds made by the same oddsmaker went to Kim Kardashian becoming president in 2020. Gentlemen, place your bets!
Asked if there was any link between football-related head trauma and neuro-degenerative diseases like CTE, Jeff Miller, the NFLâs senior vice president for health and safety, said: âThe answer to that question is certainly yes.â
The NFL released a statement just hours after Millerâs admission, claiming that âa lot more questions need to be answered.â
Hey, NFL, pro tip: Maybe itâs not the best idea to be stealing corporate denial tactics from the Philip Morris playbook.
Country legend Willie Nelson is launching his own cannabis brand, Willieâs Reserve.
Canât wait for the âWe will sell no weed before its timeâ commercials starring the red-headed stranger.
A 53-year-old dad in Omaha stumbled upon pot brownies made by his adult children, ate four of them, and ended up calling the family cat a âbitch.â
Disney princesses may not be the best role models for girls, but a BYU study found that for boys, they provide âa needed counterbalance to the hyper-masculine superhero media.â
Discovery Girls, a magazine for preteens, ran a story titled âWhat Swimsuit Best Suits You?â
Readers, some as young as 8, were asked to assess their bodies: Were they âcurvy on top,â âstraight up and down,â or ârounder in the middle?â
A little young for that. Itâs just like that episode of Sesame Street where Big Bird told kids about the letter P, for âWould it kill you to lose a few pounds?â
Walking on your hands!
Why? Beyond impressing Instagram followers, it doesnât offer much.
Exercise physiologist Pat Davidson, Ph.D., says it can injure shoulders, has very little muscle-building or fat-burning benefit, and wonât make you better at anything other than handstand walking.
Stan Larkin, a 25-year-old Michigan man, lived for 17 months without a heart.
As he waited for a transplant, his artificial heart was powered by a portable driver in a backpack.
One-fifth of genetics research papers were incorrectly autocorrected by Microsoft Excel, which confused gene labels with dates and random digits.
And you thought your phoneâs auto-correct was annoying.
Main image: Matt Rainey (Enquirer), James Devaney/WireImage/Getty Images (Spider-Man), iStockphoto/Getty Images (goat head), Michael Hickey/Getty Images (Jagger), Splash News (Kardashian), Lucky Business/Getty Images (rower), Bela Borsodi/Trunk Archive (hot dog).