Edit: I have many worldwide readers, however, this particular post mainly pertains to American cultures and subcultures. I’m a huge lover of globalization and will post plenty on that, promise. However, to recap an entire year for a country that I’ve never seen first hand is a bit difficult. 53% of my blog readers are American, but I love my 47% equally!

2016 has been quite the year. Natural disasters to major celebrity deaths to hit movies to dumb people to new waves of technology – 2016 shaped us all.

One common theme for the year has been “2016 ruined us all”, but, truthfully, I see this as a diversion of blame. We mess ourselves up. If we ruined our year, it was our fault for doing so, and not the years. Father Time isn’t sitting up in a pedestal somewhere laughing at Gen-Z and Millennial running around terrified. No. As a culture, we are going through major shifts, and this particular year has shown some ill effects. In sociology, there are five ways in which a culture can change, and I believe that our Western culture has changed in all five. Allow me to explain.

1.) Discovery

Essentially, paying attention to something that we never knew existed. On a menial note, Joe Biden has existed since 1942, yet he did not hit popularity for Gen-Zs and Millennials until this year.

Yet, on a more serious note, we truly discovered the ills of natural disasters, such as Hurricane Matthew on the East Coast and the wildfires in Virginia/Tennessee/North Carolina. But that’s depressing and serious. Have some more memes.



2.) Invention

Oh my, do I even have to elaborate? We are in a time of technological invention! Ironically, even though most of us find ourselves constantly surrounded by technology, if we were to be submerged into a past time, we would be of no help because we don’t understand how any of it works. What a strange time that we live in.

3.) Diffusion

Our clothing styles from overseas, our music, television, and movie culture rapidly adoring the Brits (okay, but seriously, why are so many of our things British?). Anime and Hentai (gulp) are huge. We are adopting the ideologies and becoming more global.

4.) Acculturation

See above. Can you name more than three members of One Direction? Yeah, I’m ashamed, too.



5.) Assimilation

Although I believe that we have failed to reach this point, between immigrants and expats, we are approaching this point.



I wish I could make some drastic ending point to make my English teacher proud, but honestly, I’m just going to conclude this post with some more memes. Because, you know. Memes.