23 Moments That Made Us Smile in 2022

Who could predict that 2022’s meme calendar would begin with an almost-18-year-old feud between an inanimate rock and Sesame Street staple Elmo? It all started with a 2004 clip of Elmo and his fellow Muppet Zoe arguing over her pet rock and whether it deserved (or even could) eat the last oatmeal raisin cookie. “How?! How is Rocco going to eat that cookie, Zoe!?” Elmo shouts in the clip, ushering in the “unhinged Elmo” era that dominated January social media. “Tell Elmo! Rocco doesn’t even have a mouth. Rocco’s just a rock. Rocco’s not alive!” While Elmo told E! News in January that his squabble with Zoe was a difference of opinion, the fury in that puppet’s cold eyes remains one of the best moments of 2022. —C.T.J.

Barely a week into the new year, 90-Day Fiancé star Stephanie Matto already had many of us wondering if we were in the wrong business. The self-proclaimed “fartpreneur” had TikTok in a chokehold as she chronicled just how she was able to create a booty-smelling dynasty, making more than $200,000 selling farts in a jar. She gave her adoring fans the content many of them had been demanding from her for years. She gave the rest of us, if nothing else, an idea for a side-hustle at which virtually anyone with a butthole and a sense of humor could potentially thrive. “I don’t think it’s exploitative at all,” Matto told Rolling Stone at the time. “I think, like, it’s a super, super honest transaction. People know what they’re paying for it.” —C.C.

The coat. The exposed belly. The utter nerve of this Barbadian “national hero” to drop an exclusive baby announcement on a Monday morning. It’s been ages since Rihanna put out an album, in the meantime focusing on being a billionaire, as well as the wealthiest female musician in the world. So when she premiered her latest creation, fans went wild. The moment was perhaps only upstaged by a TikTok posted in December, in which she debuted the child himself — an adorable baby snapped snugly into a car seat, desperately trying to eat his mama’s phone. —C.T.J.

During the pandemic, the nightlife scene in Kyiv, Ukraine, took off — with relatively relaxed lockdown policies, bars would stay open all evening, making the city a late-night cultural center. Then came the Russian invasion. The same people who had been attending 24-hour raves took to the streets to fight off invading soldiers, and the bars and clubs became their headquarters. A Cuban restaurant called Buenavista — which had become a meeting place for the city’s African and Latin American communities — began providing food, liquor, and safety for the ad hoc troops defending their city. “Ukraine is a frontier society and I have a frontier mentality,” Max Leonov, the owner of Buenavista, told Rolling Stone in March. “I thrive in this kind of chaos.” —E.G.P.

For a lot of fans of Gen X rock, Olivia Rodrigo’s “Brutal” already brought to mind alt-rock mainstays Veruca Salt. So when she covered the Chicago band’s hit “Seether,” kicking off her highly anticipated Sour tour in Portland, Oregon, it felt like a match made in grunge heaven. She thanked her mom for introducing her to the 1994 classic about rage and self-loathing. As the band posted on Twitter, watching Rodrigo introduce “Can’t fight the seether” to her young fans made our day. —L.T.

Sara Bareilles, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Paula Pell, and Busy Philipps have been bringing us joy since their show Girls5Eva — about a Spice Girls-esque 1990s girl group reuniting in their forties — launched last year. But when the foursome appeared on Rolling Stone’s live Twitch stream in May, their real-life humor and friendship was palpable. It didn’t hurt that they were on their second stop of the day, and their first one had been “alcohol infused” — “Am I wearing pants?” asked Pell. “And can someone tell me what a Twitch stream is?” —E.G.P.

Who knew that the New York University class of 2022 would be the last people able to get tickets to see Taylor Swift? After receiving an honorary doctorate of fine arts, Swift gave a rousing speech, encouraging the graduates to be all right with making mistakes — and secretly quoting a song from her then-unknown 10th studio album. “As long as we are fortunate enough to be breathing, we will breathe in, breathe through, breathe deep, breathe out,” she said. “And I’m a doctor now, so I know how breathing works.” —C.T.J.

NASA may have not cracked time travel yet, but its new superpowered James Webb Space Telescope can show us images from 13 billion years ago. Released over the summer, the full-color shots had been more than 25 years in the making — the project dates back to 1996, and was only launched on Christmas of last year. Looking with such clarity so deep into the universe, as NASA administrator Bill Nelson put it, “will help to uncover the answers to questions we don’t even yet know to ask; questions that will help us better understand our universe and humanity’s place within it.” Of course, the shots didn’t just inspire awe, but plenty of memes, too. —E.G.P.

Two decades after their first engagement fell apart, unofficial Dunkin’ Donuts spokesman Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez finally got married. The two, who originally dated from 2002 to 2004, clearly had some stuff to work out. And though she wouldn’t reveal much, when Lopez spoke about it to Rolling Stone, it certainly seemed like they were happy to be back together. “We’ve both grown. We’re the same, and we’re different,” she said. “And that’s what’s nice.” The couple had two ceremonies: the first a Vegas elopement, and the second an intimate — if over-the-top — white-tie affair at Affleck’s Savanah, Georgia, estate. Rooting for Ben and Jen to get back together was a little like rooting for the Red Sox — wait long and patiently enough, and it’ll finally happen. —J.R.

In the first full year where fans returned to concerts en masse, no moment better represented the joy and unexpected alchemy of live music than when Joni Mitchell made her surprise return to the stage at Newport Folk Festival to perform her first set since 2000. Mitchell, still recovering from an aneurysm that had left her unable to sing for years, began the set with hesitation, relying on collaborators to sing lead. But by the performance’s end, Mitchell had played a guitar solo, covered doo-wop favorites, and offered heartbreaking reinterpretations of classics like “Both Sides Now,” showing that at 79 she’s far from done finding powerful new avenues of self-expression. The world couldn’t help but smile: Her performance went mega-viral and became a much-needed tale of persistence, survival, and the magic of live music. —J.B.

When he tried it with butter, everything changed. Within days after Tariq, a seven-year-old who had recently learned corn was real, appeared on the web series Recess Therapy, the entire internet had been charmed by the charismatic second-grader with a passion for the crunchy, juicy starch. Clutching a roasted ear of corn , he wished viewers a “corn-tastic” day, while his grandmother giggled beside him. “What? It’s just a pun about corn,” he said through two missing front teeth. The interview even spawned the song of the summer, by news-spoofing group the Gregory Brothers, who turned Tariq’s most quotable moments into a triumphant anthem. Who could imagine a more beautiful thing? —A.M.

It had been years since we’d seen Brendan Fraser in any leading role, and here he was — back from Hollywood Listicle purgatory — receiving a standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival for his performance in The Whale, a Darren Aronofsky film in which he plays a 600-pound man. While the film is reportedly extremely depressing, the crowd’s reaction to it was decidedly not — it stood for six minutes cheering Fraser, who smiled through tears. A string of injuries and an alleged sexual assault and blacklisting had knocked him off course. But in 2022, we got our Brendan Fraser back. —E.G.P.

At her portrait unveiling in September, former First Lady Michelle Obama reminded us that she’s an icon, she’s a legend, and she is the moment. In true #BlackGirlMagic form, Obama wore braids as she returned to the White House, and people took to twitter to celebrate. The history-making portraits of the first Black president and first lady already held so much significance on its own, but punctuating the moment by slaying in a protective style just hit different. —C.C.

Sheryl Lee Ralph absolutely sparkled when she took home her first ever Emmy, for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. After opening her emotional acceptance speech with a bar from Dianne Reeves’ “Endangered Species,” the 65-year-old actress told an applauding crowd to never give up on their dreams — and finally (and literally) got her flowers. “I’m just so thrilled,” she told Rolling Stone in November. “I am on top of the world. I am enjoying the view. I am loving what I see. But even though I’m on the top of the world, I see other planets out there, and can’t help but think, ‘Let’s go there!’ I mean, I just can’t stop.” —C.T.J.

TikTok is rarely funnier than when it makes zero sense. Among the surrealist triumphs of 2022 was an idea that began as a micro trend and exploded into an undeniable phenomenon, brought to life by the combination of two key ingredients: a filter that turned you into a chrome woman walking along a tropical beach, and a song called “Taste the Biscuit,” from the 2010 mockumentary Chickens in the Shadows. The creators behind the infectious oddball tune told Rolling Stone all about how it keeps going viral, even more than decade later, and in ways they couldn’t possibly expect or explain. Must be the sweetness of the biscuit. —M.K.

It’s hard to say what we did to deserve the Maroon 5 frontman’s leaked Instagram messages, but we’re not complaining. Adam Levine, although married, was allegedly blowing up the DMs of models left and right, and when these women decided they’d had enough, the gawking public feasted upon such timeless lines of coquetry as “Holy fucking fuck, that body of yours is absurd” and “I may need to see the booty.” However off your own game is, you could probably give Levine a pointer or two, and now that his sexting style has been immortalized in memes, he’d surely be grateful for it. —M.K.

While that sentence would probably give a Victorian child a small brain aneurysm, it was actually small-minded American conservatives who melted down the most over a skilled musician handling an instrument with care. In October, the Library of Congress invited Lizzo on a tour of more than 1,700 flutes, and then let her play a crystal flute owned by President James Madison onstage. Lizzo, who is a classically trained flutist — as well as talented, fat, and extremely hot — did an amazing job, even twerking at the same time. Of course, that left conservative pundits like Matt Walsh essentially foaming at the mouth. How dare she play such a respected piece of American history? And play it so well? And play it while Black? Anyway, Lizzo is doing fine and hot off her second time being the musical guest on SNL. Suck it, Walsh. —C.T.J.

Gay people are very, very thirsty. That’s the only way to explain why a simple featurette clip of House of Dragon stars Emma D’Arcy and Olivia Cooke talking about their favorite drinks absolutely dominated the internet for at least a month. But don’t worry if this has sparked a newfound love of negronis with a twist. Several bartenders told Rolling Stone that as long as you’re at a bar that has a cocktail menu, ordering this House of Dragon-inspired drink won’t put your favorite bar staff in the weeds — it’s become a pretty standard order. —C.T.J.

Dylan Mulvaney doesn’t have it easy. The trans TikTok star who’s been documenting her “days of girlhood” over the past year has been doxxed, endlessly harassed, and even targeted by Caitlin Jenner herself. But that hasn’t stopped Mulvaney from sharing her story, and she’s emerged as an honest, generous, and patient guide through her experience. In October, she was recognized by the White House, and invited to speak with Joe Biden about issues affecting the health and safety of trans people across the country. “You know that phrase ‘I feel I may have girl-bossed too close to the sun’?” she says in a TikTok posted the morning of the meeting. “Well, that’s how I feel today.” —E.G.P.

Elon Musk, to put it nicely, doesn’t always think things through — and that was on clear display when he announced the paid-checkmark program for his newly purchased Twitter. For only $8 a month, any user could say they were verified, and people quickly went about creating fake verified accounts for everything from government agencies to celebrities. Generally, impersonating another entity in an official capacity isn’t a great look, but there were a few exceptions — like a writer named Sean Marrow who spent $8 to mimic pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and tweet, “We are excited to announce insulin is free now” — tanking the corporation’s stock. And yes, schadenfreude isn’t exactly what this list is for, but when the subject is a corporation making billions a year off of a drug that was supposed to be in the public domain, we’ll give it a pass. —E.G.P.

When the inimitable Jeff Goldblum stopped by the Rolling Stone office to discuss his new Christmas jazz single and build gingerbread houses on our Twitch stream, he was a whirlwind of holiday cheer. But more surprising than his relentless stream-of-consciousness conversation was the revelation that he’d never tried the Japanese sweet treat Pocky. His first bite seemed to hit him square in the soul, and for once he was practically speechless, eyes closed in bliss, transported by an “almost religious ecstasy.” The snack couldn’t ask for a better endorsement — and, after all, it makes a perfect stocking stuffer. —M.K.

Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega) may have not been smiling when she executed a positively kooky dance routine to the Cramps’ “Goo Goo Muck” on the hit Netflix show, but we certainly were. Ortega credited “Siouxsie Sioux, Bob Fosse’s Rich Man’s Frug, Lisa Loring, Lene Lovich, Denis Lavant, and archival footage of goths dancing in clubs in the Eighties” as inspiration for her various and sundry undulations, a highlight in the Tim Burton spinoff of the Addams Family TV series. The show’s inclusion of the punkabilly classic introduced a whole new generation to Lux Interior and Poison Ivy, with the song hitting the charts and TikTok in the wake of Wednesday’s dance-floor domination. —B.E.

From its electrifying championship game to its weird mid-December timing to the damning allegations of human-rights abuses by host country Qatar, there’s no doubt this World Cup was one of the most memorable (or notorious) of all time. But the particular moment that made us smile was watching Morocco become the first African and Arab squad to make it to the tournament’s semifinals. Early on in the games, they established themselves as a competitive force — beating out Canada, Belgium, and Spain — and when they defeated Portugal, they helped coalesce a billions-strong contingent of African and Arab fans cheering for their success. Though the team lost against France in the next match, seeing them get as far as they did was a heartwarming moment that reminded us just how exciting a great underdog drama can be. —E.G.P.