2020 has been a wild ride that’s seen the creation of new words like ‘iso’ and TV presenters forgetting to wear pants as they .
Let’s recap on the year that’s killed satire, seen absurd conspiracy theories hit the mainstream and that, let’s be honest, everyone’s looking forward to ending.
The Hawaiian holiday
Most of us kicked off the new decade, wearing face masks and trying not to inhale hazardous smoke brought on by some of the worst bushfires in Australian history. And with the pandemic, some of us will likely end the year the same way: wearing a face mask.
But cast your mind back to the start of the year... which now feels like a century ago. Australia was up in flames, with mega blazes having burnt around 18.6 million hectares, destroyed 5,900 buildings, and tragically, killed 34 people.
Australian tourists said they snapped this picture with Scott Morrison in Hawaii earlier this week, posting it to Instagram. Source: Twitter: @Ben_Downie
During what felt like the end of days, Australians had one lingering question: Scotty, where the bloody hell are ya?
It turned out that in the peak of the crisis, Prime Minister Scott Morrison had taken a holiday to Hawaii. The Hawaiian getaway divided Australians, with many feeling angry and abandoned. Others argued that the Prime Minister, like all Australians, deserved some time off.
The Prime Ministerthat he caused "great anxiety in Australia" by taking a trip as bushfires burned.
On the upside, a mural mocking Scott Morrison and a parodying his vacation has been added to the National Library of Australia archives.
The great toilet paper runout
The great toilet paper shortage had to be one of the most apocalyptic moments of 2020. We were confronted by the worst of humanity in supermarkets across Australia, as the selfishness of hoarders hit global headlines.
Shelves were stripped bare as panic-buying took hold and supermarkets began rationing products like pasta, rice, hand sanitiser, soap and toilet paper.
Supermarket shelves were cleared of essential items like toilet paper, as panic buying resumed after a spike of coronavirus cases in Victoria. Source: Supplied
Things quickly turned violent as footage emerged of two women screaming and brawling over the scarce product in a grocery store.
According to the , at the height of panic buying in Mid-March, Woolworths sold 39.7 million rolls a week. Those are incredible stats when compared to one week in May where Woolworths sold between 9 and 9.5 million rolls.
Another surreal toilet-paper related moment occurred when a truck containing a load of the precious resource burst into flames on Brisbane's Gateway Bridge. With Australia facing a national shortage at the time, firefighters were praised for managing to save half of the truck’s load.
Karens fight back
2020 saw the unfortunate birth of the ‘Bunnings Karen’. It came after several women filmed themselves berating employees and arguing they didn’t have to wear a mask as the public health measure supposedly ‘violated’ their human rights.
Another woman, who was also dubbed a ‘Karen’, filmed herself laughing as she drove through a police checkpoint and refused to answer an officer’s questions. Police later revealed they had to smash her window six days later when officers arrested her in Carlton after she failed to comply.
Karen was chosen as Macquarie Dictionary's People's Choice for Word of the Year. Source: Macquarie Dictionary
Breakfast TV jumped on the viral moment by pitting ‘Good Karens’ against ‘Bunnings Karens’, as women named Karen complained they felt wrongly done by.
Gomeroi journalist Madeline Hayman-Reber told The Feed earlier this year that the Australian media had glossed over the term’s racial elements.
“The term ‘Karen’ isn’t about a name. It’s a concept,” Hayman-Reber told The Feed.
“The fact they have found a way to make white women the victim in a larger debate about white privilege is ignorant and racist,” she said.
Kyrgios becomes COVID king in the sports world
Nick Kyrgios ended 2019 on a six month probation period with a record fine of USD$113,000. His outbursts and non-traditional style had marked him as the ‘bad boy’ of Australian tennis.
But 2020 has been his redemption year.
Kyrgios was crucial in organising the bushfire relief fundraiser during the Australian Open in January.
Aussie Nick Krygios is out of the French Open Source: Getty Images
He also became one of the most outspoken in sport on the precautions necessary to deal with the spread of COVID-19.
Even before Novak Djokovic’s controversial Adria Tour in June, Kyrgios was warning Djokovic and other tennis players planning on participating how dangerous the event could be.
But the event went ahead, and a number of the players, including Djokovic, contracted the virus. It reignited Kyrgios' somewhat one-sided slanging match with Djokovic.
Kyrgios took to Twitter on June 22 to criticise the decision to go ahead with the event, calling it “boneheaded”. He also wished Djokovic, Borna Coric, Grigor Dimitrov and Viktor Troicki, who tested positive for COVID-19, a speedy recovery.
“But that’s what happens when you disregard all protocols. This IS NOT A JOKE,” Kyrgios wrote on Twitter.
The back and forth usually reserved for the tennis court played out entirely online, with former world number one Boris Becker jumping in to criticise Kyrgios...for daring to criticise others.
“Anybody telling off fellow sportsman/woman is no friend of mine! Look yourself in the mirror and think your better than us,” Becker wrote on Twitter.
The two engaged in a very public back and forth on Twitter, with many supporting Kyrgios.
Kyrgios didn’t just speak loudly about his concerns about the spread of COVID-19 - he took action. The young Australian tennis player took the decision to not compete in the US Open back in August.
“I’m sitting out for the people, for my Aussies, for the hundreds and thousands of Americans that have lost their lives, for all of you. It’s my decision,” he said.
Pauline Hanson gets booted off commercial TV
‘Cancel culture’ has been a phrase bandied around ad nauseam this year but one person who few thought would see their time on commercial TV cut short was Pauline Hanson.
One Nation leader Senator Pauline Hanson at Parliament House in Canberra, June 17, 2020. Source: AAP
When the Victorian government placed a hard lockdown on Melbourne’s public housing towers in North Melbourne and Flemington in July, Ms Hanson had some choice words for those dealing with the situation.
Ms Hanson labelled residents in the nine public housing estate towers "drug addicts" and "alcoholics" who can't speak English, in an interview on Channel Nine's Today Show.
The backlash for the comments was immediate, and in no time, Nine’s Director of News and Current Affairs made the network’s position clear.
"The Today Show has advised Pauline Hanson that she will no longer be appearing on our programme as a regular contributor," Darren Wick said in a statement.
"We don't shy away from diverse opinions and robust debate on the Today Show. But this morning's accusations from Pauline Hanson were ill-informed and divisive," he said.
But the saga continued. During the hard lockdown, Ms Hanson attempted to send 114 parcels of stubby holders to one of the locked-down towers in North Melbourne.
Addressed to residents, they were adorned with the words: 'I've got the guts to say what you're thinking', and with a note attached saying, 'no hard feelings'.
Ahmed Dini, a community advocate and resident of the building where the parcels were sent, told The Feed earlier this year that he believed Ms Hanson knew what she was doing by sending the stubby holders.
Pauline Hanson speaking on Nine's 'The Today Show'. Source: Nine's Today Show
"She just wanted to obviously explore the vulnerabilities of these communities," he said.
"She wanted to obviously make the point that they were alcoholics. That's why she was sending her stubbies.”
Pete Evans gets cancelled
Another surprise cancellation came late in the year, this time for former ‘My Kitchen Rules’ host Pete Evans.
Evans was dumped by a host of brands, including Kmart, Big W, David Jones and his publisher Pan Macmillan after he shared a cartoon on social media which appeared to incorporate a neo-Nazi symbol.
Appearing with his horse in a video posted on Instagram, he denied knowledge of the symbol and claimed he had to Google what “neo-Nazi meant.”
Former celebrity chef Pete Evans. Source: QANTAS/AAP
"Just when you thought 2020 couldn't get any more bizarre, the mainstream media have just come out and labelled me a racist and neo-Nazi. The fact that I had to actually Google what neo-Nazi meant is pretty telling," Evans said.
"I just want to tell you this once and one time only. It is completely untrue, unfactual and a load of garbage."
The embattled public figure has consistently made headlines for his conspiratorial views.
Evans has repeatedly posted baseless anti-vaccination and anti-fluoride claims to his 1.5 million Facebook followers on social media.
He has also shared several memes which called into question the accuracy of voting numbers in the US election. The recent election was considered the “most secure in American history”, according to a coalition of federal and state officials.
QAnon hits the mainstream
2020 was a big year for QAnon.
In case you haven’t heard, QAnon is the baseless theory that an elite cabal of pedophiles is running a global child sex trafficking ring.
QAnon followers also believe that the ‘Satan-worshiping cabal’ is plotting against Mr Trump’s presidency.
A man wrapped in a QAnon flag addresses supporters of US President Donald Trump as they protest in Arizona. Source: Getty
Earlier this year, The Feed reported onand how a new audience of wellness bloggers and lifestyle influencers were promoting the theory on Instagram.
QAnon is believed to have spawned on 4Chan back in 2017 but during global COVID-19 lockdown, its popularity rose to new heights on the imageboard ‘8kun’.
Facing criticism for not removing the content quickly enough, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook all formally announced they’d purge QAnon content from their platforms prior to the US election.
In November, two Republicans who promoted the theory -- Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert -- won seats in the House of Representatives.
Following the election, President Trump praised QAnon as a group that believes in “good government” in a meeting with top Republicans, as reported by .
Democrats in the have since asked the FBI asking for a full accounting of threats posed by QAnon followers.
According to the Pew Research Centre, 23 percent of US adults said they had heard “a lot” or “a little” about QAnon. By September, that number had increased to 47 percent.
Jonathan Swan becomes global meme
Who could forget Australian journalist Jonathan Swan’s interview with US President Donald Trump? Not us...
It was one of the most memorable and meme-worthy interviews of the year, with Veep-style spoof videos and gifs aplenty.
Donald Trump and Axios reporter Jonathan Swan speak a week after Trump's phone call with Putin. Source: Axios
Swan became the darling of journalism after his sit down with Mr Trump captured the online zeitgeist.
The interview was a rare one-on-one with President Trump in the Oval Office, and unlike his '60 Minutes' interview months later, he didn’t walk out on Swan.
And people couldn’t get enough of Swan’s facial reactions to Mr Trump’s responses to his questions.
One clip from the interview, where Swan challenges President Trump over figures relating to coronavirus deaths, now has almost 50 million views.
That clip particularly, along with the interview, drew praise for Swan as he used rigorous journalism to stand up to Trump’s misinformation. It’s been seen as an example of how to scrutinise the outgoing US president without adopting the tactics of the highly divisive and opinionated world of US network TV news.
Swan became an overnight celebrity, and it led to some Australians clueing in on just who his father is: Dr Norman Swan.
Dr Swan rose in the consciousness of most Australians as he headed up the ABC’s coverage of the coronavirus, and spent the year with regular updates of the developments of the virus through the ABC podcast ‘Coronacast’.
Since Swan arrived in the US covering politics for Axios, he’s quickly become one of the leading reporters uncovering stories about the Trump administration.
Two days prior to the election on November 3, Swan reported that US President Donald Trump had . The prediction came to light the night of November 3 where Trump declared he’d won the election before all votes were counted.
And more recently, Swan sat down with Christopher Krieb, a former election security official, in the aftermath of the election as a “form of domestic terrorism”.
And remember all those memes from the Trump interview? Well, Swan wants people to stop sending them his way.
Landscaping firm’s car park becomes enduring image of the US election
After President Trump contracted COVID-19 mid-campaign, you’d be forgiven for thinking that nothing else could genuinely surprise us about 2020.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping in Philadelphia say they have been inundated with requests for merch. Source: AAP/Four Seasons Total Landscaping
While it seemed clear that election results were swinging in favour of Democrats candidate Joe Biden, President Trump’s team called alerted the public that they were calling a press conference at the Four Seasons in Philadelphia.
A few minutes later this was corrected to ‘Four Seasons Total Landscaping’, and surely enough, Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani proceeded to address the press from the car park of the suburban business.
And as if things couldn’t get any worse for the Trump camp, Mr Giuliani was informed mid-conference that Joe Biden had won the 2020 election. He responded by making baseless claims about widespread voter fraud and election-rigging.
But the real winner of the election was the landscaping firm, who’ve capitalised on their by selling merchandise reading “MAKE AMERICA RAKE AGAIN!” and “LAWN AND ORDER”.
The business - which initially had just 277 followers - also boosted its social media presence, attracting 25,000 followers in the weeks since the election.
Donald Trump's legal team has maintained its claims of election fraud, and several speaking out against the President’s failure to concede defeat.
Black Lives Matter
The Black Lives Matter movement has been around for the better part of a decade but the death of George Floyd in May, at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer, pushed the conversation further than ever before.
Activists including members of Black Lives Matter demonstrate against the murder of Black man Joao Alberto Silveira Freitas. Source: AAP
The world erupted into protest during the global pandemic. It saw brands, sporting institutions, media companies and organisations across the board reassess their relationship to anti-racism and inclusion policies.
‘Defund the police’ became a rallying cry as activists placed pressure on politicians to take action on the when it comes to police violence.
The Minneapolis City Council boldly announced they as a response to the death of George Floyd and the protests that followed.
However, as the months followed, have moved away from the term “abolish”.
Council member Andrew Johnson said in October the idea around abolishing the police “comes with a lot of baggage, needlessly generates fear, and results in confusion by omitting important context.”
Leetona Dungay, mother of David Dungay Jr, speaks during a Black Lives Matter rally in Sydney. Source: AAP
While in Australia, the Black Lives Matter protests focused on the treatment of First Nations Australians and cast a spotlight the more than 400 Indigenous Australians who have died in police custody since the royal commission into black deaths in custody in 1991.
But weeks after the protests, rumours began to circulate that Victoria ‘second wave’ was linked to the Black Lives Matter protests in Melbourne. the protests could be linked to the cluster of cases in Melbourne’s public housing towers.
However, Victoria’s Department of Human and Health Services told The Feed there was no evidence to suggest the cluster in the towers were linked to the protests.
A public housing tower at 33 Alfred Street, North Melbourne Source: AAP
"Currently, no known, nor suspected episodes of transmission occurred at the protest itself," a DHHS spokesperson said in July.
The ‘link’ was that two cases were connected to a cluster in some of the towers, had attended the protest a month earlier, before the second wave.
And as the months have passed, the determining factor of the majority cases in Victoria’s second wave was due to breaches from hotel quarantine - not the Black Lives Matter protests.
The movement also dominated global sports as players from leagues and codes all over the world opted to ‘take a knee’. ‘taking the knee’ spread with sporting leagues and codes all over the world.
It’s led to a different approach to alleged racial abuse in sport - players taking action.
In December, PSG and Istanbul Basaksehir walked off the pitch after alleged racial slur used by the fourth official to assistant coach Pierre Webo in their UEFA Champions League group game.
The decision was unprecedented in the competition's history.
An unlikely bromance between two former political rivals
Former prime ministers Kevin Rudd and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull Source: AAP
They say time heals all wounds. The bromance between former prime ministers Malcolm Turnbull and Kevin Rudd may be evidence of just that.
The once-intense rivalry between the two former heads of the Labor and Liberal Party mellowed as the pair found a common goal in Mr Rudd’s petition for a royal commission into the diversity of Australia's news media ownership.
Mr Turnbull, along with over 500,000 other Australians, signed the petition, which is currently in the process of a parliamentary inquiry.
When Mr Turnbull signed the petition, he shared the and praised Mr Rudd for starting the petition.
“Kevin has done well to get this petition going. I doubt it will result in a Royal Commission and Murdoch’s print monopoly (since 1987) is only part of the problem. But I have signed it and encourage others to do so,” Mr Turnbull tweeted in late October.
The two former prime ministers were invited on ABC’s Insiders on November 8 to discuss US presidential elections and the potential of a royal commission into media ownership.
Mr Rudd said the two of them disagree on but their opinion of News Corp isn’t one of them.
“Murdoch’s treatment of Malcolm Turnbull in 2018, directly interfering into the internal politics of the Liberal party... is a disgrace, and it needs to be called out," Mr Rudd said.
The following week, after Mr Turnbull’s appearance on Q&A, Mr Rudd sided with his former rival on his comments about News Corp's lack of action on climate change.
Who said there’s no love in politics?
So with that, The Feed is welcoming in 2021, and saying a big fat good riddance to 2020 (so long as we can keep the QR codes and sweatpants).
How was your experience of 2020, and what are you hoping the new year brings? Email us at or with your story.
