We live in a world where a superhero movie earns less in its opening weekend than a D-minus horror flick. Where on-demand streaming services are giving us live sporting events, just like old-timey TV networks used to. Where people want to be brats, and where the internet might write a term paper for you.
Yep, 2024 proves the old adage that the only constant in the world is change. And yet, the year came with plenty of constants, too. All that worry that people would stop going to the theaters in a post-COVID world? Yeah, the movie industry is doing just fine, thanks. Are the last vestiges of appointment TV—where a good chunk of the world was watching the same thing—gone forever? The Olympics set new records.
Oh, and let’s not forget that some of 2024’s biggest success stories were, essentially, old entertainment vehicles with shiny new paint jobs. Not only were sequels still very much a thing, but some of the biggest—Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Twisters and Gladiator II, to name a few—were based on films decades old.
Who made 2024 the crazy year that it was? Let’s look at a few of pop culture 2024’s biggest players—for good or ill—and see what they might tell us about the year that (almost) was.
A young Jimmy Donaldson uploaded his first YouTube video way back in 2012, when he was just 13. He was mainly just playing through video games back then, but he was soon experimenting with other ways to connect with his audience. That connection point? A 2017 video where he—get this—counted to 100,000, a feat that took 40 hours.
Now, MrBeast is, according to Forbes, YouTube’s most influential creator—boasting more than 500 million followers and earning $85 million in 2024. Oh, and since dominating YouTube wasn’t enough, MrBeast is hosting his very own gameshow on a semi-traditional entertainment platform—Amazon Prime Video’s Beast Games. The show has triggered plenty of curiosity and more than a bit of controversy: Some contestants allege that the show subjected them to unsafe working conditions.
Simone Biles
In terms of ratings, the Summer Olympics were the television event of the year. And who was that event’s brightest star? Well, with all due respect to Stephen Nedoroscik (the bespectacled pommel horse phenom on the U.S. Men’s Gymnastics Team), Biles once again took center stage. Nearly 35 million people in the U.S. watched Biles claim her second all-around title—up from the already-gobsmacking 30.6 million viewers the Olympics averaged during its run. She led the team to a gold medal, too and—almost as an afterthought—took a third gold medal in vault. (She also won silver on the floor exercise.)
She’s now the most decorated gymnast in history, and that’s after she withdrew from most of the 2020 Olympics. All that hardware and an inspiring comeback story to boot? Yeah, Biles sticks the landing.
Walter Camp
Go ahead, say it. Walter Camp died in 1925! How can he make a list of cultural movers and shakers in 2024? Here’s why: Walter Chauncey Camp is called the “Father of American Football,” and arguably nothing has impacted the world of entertainment more than his gridiron brainchild.
During the 2023-24 television season, the highest-rated primetime series weren’t scripted dramas or sitcoms; They were football “shows.” (NBC’s Sunday Night Football was No. 1, followed by ABC’s Monday Night Football and Amazon Prime’s Thursday Night Football. CBS’ Tracker finished fourth.) Super Bowl LVIII drew more than 200 million viewers—a new record. And the sport ain’t just a TV thing, either. EA Sports College Football 25 was the year’s most-lucrative video game, earning EA Sports $500 million in just its first two weeks of release. Ol’ Walter would be amazed.
Sabrina Carpenter
Carpenter is no newcomer to the world of entertainment. Like many a musical artist, she first came to the world’s attention courtesy a Disney Channel series—in this case, Girl Meets World. But her latest album, Short n’ Sweet, catapulted Carpenter into the stratosphere. It spawned the hit “Espresso,” which was the world’s number one song of the summer and was streamed a staggering 1.7 billion times on Spotify. Her follow-up single, “Please Please Please,” has been nearly as big—scoring her first No. 1 hit on Billboard’s Hot 100.
Sure, Taylor Swift had plenty of success in 2024, too, what with the release of The Tortured Poets Department. And she could legitimately make our Movers and Shakers list every year. But if it’s Swift’s world, Carpenter has staked out her own sizable domain within it.
Timothée Chalamet
Consider Chalamet as an effective set of bookends for 2024. Chalamet’s film Wonka was North America’s top film the first weekend in January. (It wound up earning $634.4 million worldwide overall.) This Christmas, a very different music-themed film featuring Chalamet—A Complete Unknown—opened to critical acclaim and Oscar buzz. And in between? Well, Chalamet starred in a little thing called Dune: Part Two, which has earned $714.4 million worldwide. Forget House Atreides: Timothée Chalamet is filling the house.
Snoop Dogg
He just might be the only rapper your parents—or grandparents—know, and it has nothing to do with his music. No, Snoop has transcended the world of rap and become one of the world’s most ubiquitous pitchmen. You’ll see him hocking beer. Chips. Insurance. Cell phone service. He’s part of 122 national ad campaigns, according to iSpot.tv—campaigns that have had 203,016 airings in just the last 30 days!
And even if you skip the commercials, Snoop’s presence is still irrepressible. There he is, coaching singers on The Voice. There he is again, kicking back with Martha Stewart during the Olympics. Did he have his own LEGO figure on Pharell Williams’ movie Piece by Piece? Of course he did. He’s Snoop Dogg! Only death and taxes have been more inescapable this year.
Cynthia Erivo
It’s not easy to step into the shoes of Idina Menzel, the golden-piped singer and actress who was Elphaba in the original Broadway production of Wicked. But judging from the success and accolades we’ve seen pile up for Wicked: Part 1, Erivo’s done just fine. Thanks in big part to Erivo and co-star Ariana Grande, Wicked has already grossed nearly $400 million in North America and $580 million worldwide. It’s considered a strong Oscar contender as well, with Erivo a favorite to land a Best Actress nomination.
Given that Erivo has already earned an Emmy, a Grammy and a Tony award, it’s possible that Erivo just might be the 28th person to join the EGOT club—considered the grand slam of the American entertainment industry. You might say that, this year, Erivo defied gravity.
Mickey Mouse
On last year’s Movers and Shakers list, when CEO Bob Iger returned after a series of flops, I called Disney a “company in crisis.” Well, the Mouse House still has some issues to tackle. But man, you couldn’t tell that from the box office. Disney had a huge bounce-back year: Inside Out 2 will finish as 2024’s biggest success story, banking nearly $653 million in North America and $1.7 billion worldwide. The film’s nearest competitor in 2024? That’d be Disney/Marvel’s Deadpool & Wolverine, which scraped up $636.7 million stateside and $1.3 billion worldwide.
Disney’s Moana 2 is in the year’s top five as well ($366.3 million in North America, $806.9 million globally). In fact, Disney is the only studio to earn more than $2 billion at the domestic box office this year—marking Disney’s return to the cinematic summit. It’s been nearly 100 years since Disney introduced Mickey Mouse to the world in Steamboat Willie. But the aged little rodent—at least in the world of movies—has rarely looked stronger.
Chappell Roan
Chappell Roan went supernova in 2024. Her album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, landed at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 albums chart. The song, “Good Luck, Babe!” became a sensation and has been nominated for a trio of Grammy awards. Her songs are catchy and fun, her live performances are reportedly electrifying, and her sexual inclinations have made her, in the words of PinkNews, a “queer pop icon.”
Raised in the Midwest and reared with conservative, Christian values, Roan has long since left that past behind, fostering legions of new fans with her sometimes-painful authenticity and embrace of everything LGBT. No, she’s not the best-selling singer in the music world. Arguably, she’s not even the most popular on this list. But Chappell Roan’s influence cannot be overstated.
Shaboozey
Google Shaboozey. Go ahead: I’ll wait. Did you see the screen tilt to the left, then to the right? Well, you can thank the singer’s breakout hit, “A Bar Song [Tipsy],” for that. Born Collins Obinna Chibueze, Shaboozey took a 20-year-old rap song (“Tipsy”) and countrified it, turning it into the year’s biggest hit. “The Bar Song” spent 19 weeks on top of Billboard’s Hot 100 list—tying Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” as the longest-running No. 1 song in history. It landed at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart, too, giving him the honor of being the first Black artist to debut at the top of both charts at the same time.
Country is big these days: Huge pop stars such as Beyonce and Sheryl Crow released country albums in 2024, and more will likely come. But Shaboozey’s titanic chart topper shows the level to which genre-blending songs are in vogue—and how tunes about getting drunk never seem to go out of style.
