Taylor Swift, Beyoncé and celeb divorces: These are 2023’s defining pop culture moments

From Beyoncé and Taylor Swift monopolizing our lives to debates over NFL safety, labor strikes, celebrity divorces and endless court appearances, this is what dominated the culture in 2023.

We’re crawling to the end of 2023, and thank goodness we made it. We lived through a lot this year — too much, even! From Beyoncé and Taylor Swift monopolizing our lives to debates over NFL safety, labor strikes, celebrity divorces and endless court appearances (who knew Gwyneth Paltrow and Young Thug would have something in common this year?), we — two self-proclaimed pop-culture scholars — have remembered it all. So gather around, fellow culture fiends. Here are the things that defined pop culture this year, for better or worse. It was a theatrical event the likes of which we haven’t seen since Tony Stark died in the MCU (sorry, this isn’t a spoiler anymore). “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” two of the most-anticipated films of 2023, premiered over the same summer weekend. (“Barbie” was released by Warner Bros., which shares parent company Warner Bros. Discovery with CNN.) Rather than set the pair up for competition, filmgoers created a viral campaign to see them on the same day, in a dissonant double feature. They called it “Barbenheimer.” Buzz and marketing budgets aside, the “Barbenheimer” movement drove both films to the top of the box office and gave theaters a much-needed boost. The real takeaway here, though, is that audiences just want to watch good movies, whether they’re steeped in historical dread or bedecked in pink. It was the year of the celebrity memoir — Britney Spears’ “The Woman in Me” was billed as the pop idol’s first account of her 13-year conservatorship, while Prince Harry’s “Spare” was the erstwhile royal’s tell-all about the house of Windsor.