2011’s Top Pop Culture Moments

Once again, another incredible year in pop culture is coming to an end. And once again, it’s time for my year-end wrap-up of events, which will no doubt cause hipsters across St. Louis to cry into their PBR’s over the suburban lameness of some of my choices.

There were supposed to be 10 moments, but I still have Christmas cookies to bake and presents to wrap, so I leave you with nine. Don’t judge.

Weddings of the year– Two weddings – both big, both over-the-top, both extravagant. Yet, for Kate Middleton, we woke up in the middle of the night to bask in the fairy tale and tweet endlessly about the fabulousness of her gown. For Kim Kardashian, we watched in mock horror, biting our lips to keep from retching, only to be shocked – shocked – when her marriage collapsed 72 days later. If anything good came out of the Kardashian wedding frenzy, it was Kristen Wiig’s spot-on impression of Kris Jenner.

The return of the sitcom – From new shows like New Girl and Up All Night to the surprise renewal of the incredibly awesome Happy Endings, we parents have a new batch of awkward, silly and quirky friends we can hang with on weeknights. There was nothing that made me laugh harder or identify with more this season than Up All Night’s working mom Reagan criticizing her husband’s Facebook likes before hanging out with their younger hipster neighbors. “Ironic is bad movies and malt liquor, not J.Crew at the Grove and Lipitor.”

Oprah’s final season – Whether we were planning our college classes around her show or trying to manipulate our way onto Her Favorite Things episodes, Aunt Oprah has been there for us since the day our moms welcomed her into our homes. Although her persona blew up into ridiculous proportions, she encouraged us to Live Our Best Lives and join her worldwide Book Club. Plus, she introduced us to Nate Berkus, which is reason enough to give her props.

Adele kicks Katy Perry to the curb – The most downloaded single and album of 2011 weren’t performed by bubbly auto-tuned pop stars, but a grown-up, bad-ass woman singing about love and loss. Every woman who listened to Adele’s 21 immediately nodded her head in agreement and sang along at the top of her lungs in her minivan. We finally had someone return to the pop charts whose voice was a beautiful as her lyrics. Add other great female performers, like Florence + the Machine and Joy Williams of The Civil Wars, to the mix and it was a very, very good year in music.

Young adults rule the theaters – Over the past decade, YA authors found a way to create series that appeal to tweens and teens as well as their parents, and Hollywood jumped on the bandwagon to bring their memorable characters to the big screen. In 2011, we ran to the theater to say good-bye to Harry Potter at the highest-grossing movie of the year and witnessed Bella and Jacob say their vows at the premier of Breaking Dawn - Part One. But for me, the most anticipated film event of the year came with the release of the Hunger Games trailer – and not just for the brief glimpses of Lenny Kravitz.

Ryan Gosling’s abs– Really, that’s all that needs to be said.

The Bridesmaids cast – After a hectic day of raising kids and running 15 million errands, all you want to do is down a few drinks with the ladies and bask in some gossip and sex talk. That’s why the cast of Bridesmaids was so great – the characters were bawdy and loud and hilarious and inappropriate, just like your best girlfriends. But more important, Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo were able to get to the heart of female friendships in a way no other screenwriters have done before.

Celebrating the life of Steve Jobs– When Jobs passed away in October, we all felt an ache over the loss of such a brilliant individual. Without Jobs, we wouldn’t have the iPhone to manage our busy lives – or the means to play Angry Birds in boring client meetings. We wouldn’t have experienced the moment our kids cheered and we cried at the end of Toy Story 3. Most important, we couldn’t download Color Me Badd’s “Slow Motion” the second we had a drunken craving for 90’s R&B. Few public figures have touched the lives of every member of our families and even fewer have inspired us in ways we never before could have imagined.

St. Louis Cardinals – Not exactly “pop culture,” but what movie could pack more action and excitement than Game Six of the World Series, or almost as satisfying, beating the Phillies in the playoffs? The Cardinals taught us the value of hard work, dedication and belief in ourselves – or as Nicole, a mom of three boys blogged, life lessons we could pass on to our own children. Just as important, but extremely unfortunate, we learned that when someone breaks our heart, it’s important to be the bigger person, wish him luck, and move on instead of acting like sixth grade girls whose boyfriends broke up with them between P.E. and study hall.

So, moms and dads – what were your favorite pop culture moments of 2011?

By Nicole Plegge, Lifestyle Blogger for SmartParenting