The Biggest Pop Culture Flops of 2023: ‘The Idol,’ Nicki Minaj, George Santos, and More
Another year has come and (almost) gone, and with it a pirate ship’s barrage of pop culture cannonballs, crashing into the hull of our consciousness and causing our poor, fragile brains to rapidly take on water. Like all noble seafarers, we didn’t ask for this fate. We do, however, accept it, because there is no other choice in this life but to sail the torrential waters of the zeitgeist. To love entertainment is to endure the bombs, while perennially seeking a new port to harbor in so we may restore the ramparts of our flop-addled vessels.
Alright, apologies for the pirate metaphor. Truth is: I know nothing about sailing. (Imagine that, a person whose job it is to sit in front of a keyboard, not knowing about boating; “Starboard” is what I call the Hollywood Walk of Fame.) I suppose I’m just parroting the language of One Piece, one 2023 show that remarkably was not a massive flop, even though most pre-release signs had pointed to it being terrible.
This year was a year of pop culture surprises just like that: television shows, movies, celebrity fodder, and meme moments that could have bombed gloriously, but rose to the occasion of public expectation to give us some sweet surprises. Big IP fare like Barbie and Wonka offered a surprising dose of irresistible charm. Those movies got audiences talking about how to bring new ideas to big-budget filmmaking—even if the latter is a bit more contested. (I, for one, was dazzled, despite my preexisting animosity for all things Willy Wonka.) And then there were shows like Squid Game: The Challenge, One Piece, The Curse, Swarm, and RHUGT: RHONY Legacy, ambitious programming that, by all standard metrics, should not work as well as they did.