Dennis RomeroThe economy sucked and some news just made you want to bury your head under a pillow.
But if you're in the journalism game, 2012 was the gift that kept on giving, from the worst bands (of all time) to Tom Cruise's relationship woes to awkward dance moves. Yes, awkward dance moves.
LA Weekly had some booming reader “traffic.” And for that we thank you. Here, then, are the top-10 most-read online stories of the year:
EDC; Credit: Christopher Victorio
10. Top Ten Awkward Electric Daisy Carnival Dance Move GIFs. The thing is, when people go to a rave such as “EDC,” perhaps, maybe, allegedly, they sometimes imbibe a psychedelic-strength compound. And then they sometimes lose themselves and begin to believe they are killing it on the dance floor. They are not.
Credit: Taschen
9. 10 Artsy Photos of Boobs From Taschen's The Little Book of Big Breasts (NSFW). If there's one thing you like slightly better than making fun of people who think they're dancing distinctly to electronic dance music, it's peering at NSFW boobs that think they're expressing themselves artfully.
Credit: Grace Jones
8. Top 20 Sexiest Female Musicians of All Time: The Complete List. Sense a trend here? Readers like sexy ladies. Some of them sing, dance and generally kick ass, too.
Credit: CrossFit Gym / Facebook
7. Downtown L.A. CrossFit Gym Debases Homeless Neighbors in Photos, Facebook Posts. Sure, you like your girls, L.A., but one of our biggest traffic-getters of 2012 was actual news about douches making fun of homeless people. It probably didn't hurt that we had actual photos of them doing it.
Credit: Death Cab For Cutie
6. The 20 Worst Hipster Bands: The Complete List. Nothing seems to get people wound up as much as when we say their favorite band in the world is complete and utter shite. We got so much backlash for this one that we published a follow-up saying, “We Admit It, We Were Wrong.” So there.
Credit: Copyright Lawrence Schiller
5. Marilyn Monroe's Seven Never-Before-Seen Mostly Nude Photos at Duncan Miller Gallery. You're Welcome. Anytime you have nude photos of a female celebrity, it's a good thing for web traffic. But nude photos of Marilyn Monroe that have never been seen before? Pure gold.
Credit: Kevin Scanlon for LA Weekly.
4. Jenna Marbles: The YouTube Star. This is the story about how a smart young woman with comedy chops has come to be a top-10 subscriber-attraction on YouTube. And without having to do with “Gangnam Style” dance, either.
Credit: tomcruise.com
3. 5 Signs Tom Cruise Is Gay. We almost didn't do this story, but it turned out to be a blockbuster joke about how Tom Cruise could seem gay if you look at him through the prism of dancing in tighty whities and splitting up with hot women. But he's not gay, so that's why it's so funny.
Credit: Colin Young-Wolff for LA Weekly
2. Top Ten Awkward Coachella Dance Move GIFs. Okay, so you love to watch people make fools of themselves. If it involves GIF loops of scantily clad hipsters in the warm Coachella Valley desert, even better.
And the number-one, most eyeball-getting laweekly.com story of 2012 is …
Credit: Hootie & They Blows-fish
1. Top 20 Worst Bands of All Time: The Complete List. Again, we hit a nerve. Oasis? Rush? (Neil Frigging Peart!). Foreigner? Doesn't our music staff know that we've all been waiting … for a girl like you? Well, to be fair, any worst-band list that includes Hootie & The Blowfish has got be just.
[@dennisjromero / djromero@laweekly.com / @LAWeeklyNews]
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