The fleeting passage of time will never cease to amaze me. In one blink, another year has already passed, but with the number of crazy events that went down in 2014, it felt like several years to me. I was blessed with many amazing opportunities this year, and I also made many milestones. Reaching my final year of high school has really made me slow down and reflect on all life that has to offer (and that’s a lot). In case you don’t remember 2014 too well, my fellow Youth Are Awesome bloggers have hit some of the highlights from this year.
{January}
Humans started our journey to exploring other planets by launching the Mars One mission.
{February}
The 2014 World Olympics were kicked off in Sochi.
{March}
In the social experiment “First Kiss” we got to watch two strangers make out with one another.
The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 left the world in shock and with more questions than answers.
It was revealed that the world is running out of chocolate, a fate that many were (or still are) unwilling to accept.
{April}
It seems that nothing earth-shattering happened in April of 2014!
{May}
“Look Up” by Gary Turk sparked an online debate about the harmful effect that technology is having on our society.
We all banded together and protested to #BringBackOurGirls.
{June}
Controversy erupted surrounding the FIFA World Cup.
{July}
An interesting project, “Before & After” by Ester Honig, challenged us to evaluate the ways that we view beauty.
TD decided that they wanted to thank all of their customers by turning their ATMs into “Automated Thanking Machines“.
{August}
Globally, we continue to be in a tizzy over the ebola outbreak in Africa.
The world lost young Michael Brown, but his death sparked protest and movement for action across the United States.
Awareness for ALS was raised through the #ALSIceBucketChallenge, but the actual usefulness of this “campaign” came into question.
We were devastated when beloved actor Robin Williams passed away, and it was later revealed that he was suffering from depression.
{September}
Emma Watson showed the world how amazing she was (for the umpteenth time) through her #HeForShe speech.
The referendum for independence in Scotland was shot down.
Citizens across the globe were shocked time and time again by the brutality of ISIS.
An online viral video showed us that doing something #LikeAGirl wasn’t a bad thing.
The release of the iPhone 6+ begged consumers to ask the question, “Is bigger really better?”
{October}
A controversial discussion was started which asked if the world should privatize water.
A group of women in India managed to successfully launch a spacecraft into Mars’ orbit.
Students in Hong Kong rose up in protest once again, but were met with a different response than during the Tianmen Square massacre several years ago.
The issue of marrying off young girls around the world was interestingly explored by a fake Norwegian wedding.
How far would you go to charge your tech? A charging device using human life energy was developed.
{November}
The internet was blown away by “Alex from Target,” who managed to make his way onto Ellen.
Snapchat attempted to introduce a new feature known as Snapcash,
Buffalo was hit by a monstrous snow storm.
Albertans were caught in a struggle with the introduction of Bill 10.
{December}
WestJet, once again, made some Christmas miracles happen.
Not too long ago, the Sydney Siege made headlines, and we were impacted right at home in Canada.
Obviously, there are some events missing due to bad timing and exams for the bloggers. (Though, our lovely Youth Are Awesome members did try to cover them all.) Moving on to some events that haven’t already been mentioned, YouTube released its annual Rewind video and I must say that this one is my favourite so far.
Many of the events covered by Youth Are Awesome were quite sad (as sad events are usually what end up on the news), but 2014 was also a great and prospering year. From Buzzfeed, we can see some great moments in 2014 for feminists. There were some great Vines as well, which you can check out on Distractify. Rotten Tomatoes shares the 100 best movies of this year, SPIN gives us a list of their 101 best songs, and Goodreads presents the best books of 2014.
I wish everyone the best in 2015, and maybe this post will inspire you to take a moment to reflect on the year that just passed. What were your favourite moments of 2014? Comment down below!