Notice: All forms on this website are temporarily down for maintenance. You will not be able to complete a form to request information or a resource. We apologize for any inconvenience and will reactivate the forms as soon as possible.

Pop Culture’s Top 10 Movers and Shakers (2015 Edition)

The year 2015 was filled with 365 days’ worth of stuff. Big stuff, small stuff, important stuff, strange stuff. And while we all had our own individual stuff to deal with, society foisted a whole bunch more stuff on us, too. And who, among all the 7 billion or so people living on our globe, was responsible for more entertainment and cultural stuff than anybody? Well, in this annual look back at some of the most important pop culture figures of the year, I’m about to tell you.

1231adeleAdele: So she can be a little mopey. Despite her emphasis on past regrets, folks can’t seem to get enough of her sad songs and spectacular voice. In an era in which many musicians have to beg their fans to buy their albums, Adele’s 25 (named after the age at which she recorded it) has become a bona fide cultural phenomenon, selling 1.9 million copies in the United States in its first two days of release. By Christmas, Adele had sold more than 7 million copies of 25, making it the most anyone’s sold of an album in a calendar year since Usher’s Confessions in 2004—and 25 only came out in November. At a time when the music industry is at its lowest, Adele has had success worth singing about.

1231bieberJustin Bieber: In 2013, the Biebs made this list for all the wrong reasons. The young superstar was better known for his tabloid shenanigans and growing rap sheet than his music. But that began to change this year. He spent much of the first half the year apologizing for the “last year and a half.” He burst into tears at the MTV Video Music Awards. and then he started talking about God. A lot. “We have the greatest healer of all and His name is Jesus Christ,” he said in a cover story for Complex magazine. “And He really heals. This is it. It’s time that we all share our voice. Whatever you believe. Share it. I’m at a point where I’m not going to hold this in.” It’s not like Bieber’s instantly become a perfect role model, mind you. He landed in the tabloids again for skinny-dipping, he swears like a sailor in interviews and we weren’t particularly enamored with the video for his new single “What Do You Mean?“. But it still seems like this one-time bad boy may be taking a turn for the better.

1231emojiThe Emoji: Who needs pesky words like these when you can communicate through smiley faces and unicorns? Not many teens, apparently. The emoji, long a force in texting and other forms of online communication, reached a new level of ubiquity in 2015. Why, even a fairly clueless Plugged In blogger discovered their curious, wordless charm. Apple rolled out a slew of its own new, widely publicized emojis this fall, and if those symbols don’t cut it for those-in-the-know, there are plenty of places to get your own über-specialized pictograms. (And if you’re still calling them emoticons, like my editor is wont to do, then get with the new decade!) Why, Kim Kardashian even unveiled her own line of (often risqué) emojis this month called (naturally) Kimojis. Apparently the reality starlet wanted to hitch her trailer to something even more culturally hot than she is. And let’s not forget that Universal Pictures has announced it’s working on an emoji-themed movie. We suspect the dialogue may be lacking.

1231jennerBruce/Caitlyn Jenner: It wasn’t so long ago that sexuality was thought by most of the culture to be a fairly simple thing. Men were men. Women were women. Marriage needed one of each to be—well, a marriage. Those days are long gone now in secular society, and no one has symbolized the radical quantum shift—and helped make that shift a reality—more than Jenner. Before this spring, Jenner was known for two things: his off-the-hook success in the 1976 Olympics and his status as the step-paterfamilias of the ever-colorful Kardashian clan. But in an April interview on 20/20, Jenner said he was a trans woman, and in a Vanity Fair cover story, declared that his new name was Caitlyn. The announcements were heralded with cultural hurrahs, and Jenner was showered with awards—from ESPN’s Arthur Ashe Courage Award to being named Barbara Walter’s Most Fascinating Person of 2015. Oh, and it even triggered a new reality show on E! Ironically, the same community that Jenner serves as its most visible champion has lambasted Jenner’s  conservative politics, mellow attitude toward gender pronouns (Jenner doesn’t insist on being called “she”) and unease with same-sex marriage (a position Jenner has since recanted). So I will end where I began: If we’ve learned anything from Jenner’s last several months, it’s that sexuality is now being made into a complex thing indeed.

1231leeGeneral Lee: About 150 years ago, the first General Lee—Robert E.—surrendered his sword to Ulysses S. Grant and officially brought the Civil War to a close. The South lost, but the Confederate flag continued to flap over many a state capitol rooftop. Fast-forward about seven generations and add several tragic white-on-black shootings, and all of a sudden those emblems of Southern pride began to look to much of America as, well, kinda racist. And as flags came down and statues of Confederate war heroes were removed, the second General Lee—the Dodge Charger from the old Dukes of Hazzard TV show with the Confederate battle flag on its roof and a horn that played “Dixie”—drove right into the middle of the culture’s crosshairs. TV Land took Dukes off its rotation, and pundits debated whether watching the schlocky old show was feeding cultural attitudes long past their expiration date.

1231lucasGeorge Lucas: So he didn’t have much to do with the behemoth that is Star Wars: The Force Awakens. At least on the surface. Lucas no longer concerns himself much with that galaxy far, far away. But nearly 40 years after Lucas first awakened the force of Star Wars, his fingerprints cover America’s entertainment culture in a way that no single creator ever has. Just two weeks into its run, The Force Awakens is already the ninth biggest movie of all time worldwide, having earned more than $1.2 billion. About 12 million copies of Star Wars: Battlefront have been sold since the game’s November release (for another $660 million). Add in other Star Wars game titles, and Fortune estimates that they’ve boasted more than $1 billion in sales. And we don’t have the space to get into all the toys, toothbrushes and toasters that sport images of Darth Vader and BB-8, Princess Leia and Kylo Ren. For better or worse, Lucas created the country’s most powerful cultural myth since Superman—and its force shows no signs of weakening.

1231madisonAshley Madison: She’s not a person, but a matchmaking website that fosters infidelity. Married Joes and Janes sign up for the service in hopes of finding that perfect “other man” or “other woman” with whom they can cheat on their spouses. But when the Ashley Madison website was hacked and millions of members were exposed, the repercussions sent shivers throughout the culture—including the Church. Josh Duggar, who already had been in the headlines for inappropriately touching young girls (including his sisters) as a teen, was revealed to be a member. R.C. Sproul Jr. was suspended from his role at Ligonier Ministries after his name was uncovered. And at least one pastor—John Gibson of Pearlington, Miss., committed suicide after he was linked to the site. But even as Ashley Madison and the subsequent hack destroyed thousands of lives, the site itself remains curiously unscathed. Its user base is bigger than ever, with 4 million new clients signing up after the hack.

1231martinGeorge R. R. Martin: He’s the author of A Song of Ice and Fire—perhaps the most famous fantasy series since J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Its television offspring, HBO’s Game of Thrones, has always been unremittingly bleak and salacious, but it hit new lows in 2015: First there was the sex scene between 12-year-old King Tommen (played by a still-underage 17-year-old) and his adult queen. Then there was the brutal rape of one of its prime characters, Sansa Stark, and the naked, horrific “walk of shame” by Queen Cersei. Viewers were horrified. Critics were outraged. Many said they were swearing off the show forever, even as HBO submitted its most controversial episodes for Emmy consideration. Martin has defended the brutality in the television show, in which he’s very much involved. “I want to portray struggle,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “Drama comes out of conflict. If you portray a utopia, then you probably wrote a pretty boring book.”

1231schumerAmy Schumer: She only finished fourth in NBC’s Last Comic Standing in 2007—her first big break. But while few remember the people who finished ahead of her (that’d be Gerry Dee, Lavell Crawford and Jon Reep), Schumer pretty much owns the comedy world right now. She stars in her own sketch show (Comedy Central’s Inside Amy Schumer), and she lead in a horrifically salacious but critically acclaimed movie (Trainwreck, for which she’s been nominated for a Golden Globe). She has become the face of funny, foul feminism across the country.

1231williamsBrian Williams: Sure, it’s great if our network news anchors are nice and entertaining. But their first priority should be, really, to tell the truth—something that one-time NBC news anchor Brian Williams forgot. For years, Williams went on talk shows and public appearances, exaggerating his experiences in the battlefield. His fabrications and the subsequent backlashed forced him out at NBC … but he soon began appearing on the news at sister network MSNBC. The move left some experts a bit mystified. “You could make a perfectly defensible argument that, look, anchors are newsreaders, and while Williams told a lie, he’s no less suited for the job,” wrote Time’s James Poniewozik. “And you can make a perfectly credible argument that anchors bear a public trust, which trust is shattered when they tell lies, on the newscast or off. This move, however, sort of says … both?”