The heroes and villains of 2024

THE WOMAN WHO POURED HER MILKSHAKE ON NIGEL FARAGE 🙏🏾

This diva!! 25-year-old Victoria Thomas Bowen made history when she lobbed a McDonald’s milkshake at Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, while he was out campaigning for the General Election. The photos from the moment are iconic. From the milkshake hovering mere centimetres from Farage’s face to his eyes tightly shut as he braces for impact, and finally Bowen’s smug grin as she struts away from the scene – pure glory.

Bowen has since pleaded guilty to assault by beating and admitted to causing £17.50 worth of damage to a jacket belonging to Farage’s security officer.  But our queen is standing her ground, telling the courts she has zero regrets. As always, free our girl! Victoria Thomas Bowen, we love you!

AUNTY BEMI

When Queen Elizabeth II died, a hole was left in the hearts of loser royalists everywhere; a hole that Charles and his babe, Camilla, were never going to fill. Then came along Bemi Orojuogun, better known as the London bus aunty, who stole our hearts and minds with her iconic TikTok videos. In them, she stands, sometimes alarmingly close, to passing London buses as she silently smiles at the camera.

I didn’t know I had a Queen Lizzie-shaped hole in my heart until content queen Aunty Bemi came to fill it. This year, she’s bagged partnerships with Jaffa Cakes, Alton Towers, and Jacquemus for the opening of their very first London boutique. Aunty Bemi’s head could be up, down, left or right; it doesn’t matter ‘cos her tiara is never slipping.

THE FILTON 10

The Filton 10 are a group of political prisoners, aged 21 to 30, who have been imprisoned and mistreated for destroying weapons made by Elbit Systems that were destined for Israel to use against Palestinians in Gaza. These young people, along with hundreds of others working with Palestine Action (a group using direct action to disrupt UK-based companies supplying weapons to Israel), refuse to sit idly by while Israel continues its genocide in Gaza, which has killed at least 45,614 Palestinians since October 7.

We should all aspire to be more like Madeline Norman, Fatema Zainab (Ray) Rajwani, Zoe Rogers, Charlotte Head, Hannah Davidson, Leona Kamio, Jordan Devlin, Samuel Corner, and all the other activists still in custody. The whole world should stop for Palestine.

KNEECAP

Kneecap has had an absolutely stellar year. From their critically acclaimed biopic Kneecap, Ireland’s submission for the 2025 Best International Feature Film category at the Oscars, to winning their funding battle with the UK government after Kemi Badenoch tried to withhold their Music Export Growth Scheme grant, the Irish rap trio have been unstoppable. And let’s not forget Móglaí Bap raised over £30,000 for Gaza food parcels by running 10k a day while on tour. They’ve done all of this while continuing to use and promote Gaeilge, the native language of Ireland, which remains endangered and under threat.

JEMIMA KIRKE

In recent years, we’ve been blessed with a Girls resurgence and along with it, the triumphant return of Jemima Kirke, who continues to serve up vital life advice for people of all ages. Any tips for unconfident young women? “I think you guys might be thinking about yourselves too much.” Are you queer? “What the hell, sure.”

While her most iconic advice for unconfident young women dates back to 2022, her words remain a lifeline for self-obsessed young women everywhere, keeping them grounded (or at least trying to) every single day.

ADDISON RAE

“Von Dutch” remix scream you will always be famous. Ever since Addison Rae was spotted onstage at the Charli xcx Boiler Room set, the pop princess has been living it up. She’s a reminder that personal rebrands ARE possible. Who gives a fuck if you danced on TikTok, if your ex became a Trump supporter or Reddit threads hate you? People love to hate a woman having fun. Anyway, I don’t see what’s so wrong with a manufactured pop star when Charli xcx is your Frankenstein.

THOUGHT DAUGHTERS

Because what’s hotter than a woman who thinks? Not to be confused with thot daughters, siblings to gay sons, thought daughters are introspective, misunderstood and haunted by the depth of their own self-awareness. Don’t be surprised if they cancel at the last minute; sometimes, they can’t come out tonight because they’re busy thinking. They have ink stains on their bed sheets, that one Orion Carloto poetry book on their shelf, and a propranolol prescription on their bedside table.

They’re the unsung heroes of a world that often rushes past reflection. Give a thought daughter AirPods and a long train journey, and they’re set for life – they have never got over anything, ever. Their Spotify Wrapped is a battleground of female rage; Fiona Apple is up against Adrienne Lenker, while Boygenius and Mitski cry in the corner.

They’re complex yet endearingly predictable: if the cafe has oat milk and dim lighting, you can find her there, complete with her journal and an annotated copy of The Bell Jar. 

MOO DENG

Moo Deng… what is left to say about this crazy chica? If any funny animal had to rise to cultural prominence this year, I’m glad it was her. With her screaming, biting and perpetually sour demeanour, she expressed the zeitgeist of a troubled age far better than any raccoon, capybara or seal ever could. As hordes of tourists descended upon her enclosure to goad her into performing for them, she also became a chilling parable for the pitfalls of celebrity. It would hardly have been surprising if she’d ended up having a public breakdown, developing an interest in QAnon or checking into rehab, but she survived, as spirited and defiant as ever. 

NICOLE KIDMAN’S WIGS

In The Undoing and Big Little Lies, Nicole Kidman wore gorgeous ginger wigs that didn’t dominate her face, nor her performance. But these days, her wigs seem to be out-acting her. From A Perfect Couple and Babygirl to Expats, Kidman’s wigs are so distracting and annoying that people are starting to wonder: is this deliberate? Did she somehow offend every wig team in Hollywood? I am ready to apologise on her behalf. Let’s end this madness together 🙁 

X AND ELON MUSK 

Correct me if I’m wrong but it seems like, even as recently as five years ago, it would have been unusual to come across someone gushing about how Adolf Hitler was a really cool customer. If neo-Nazism was your cup of tea, you’d have had to actively seek it out. Now, thanks to Elon Musk, I am shown the enthusiastic promotion of white supremacy, eugenics, transphobia and misogyny, along with repugnant AI illustrations of buxom Aryan milkmaids, at a frequency which manages to be both terrifying and kind of boring.

X’s value may have plummeted as a result of this shift, but in most other respects it’s been a banner year for Elon Musk. After Trump’s victory, Tesla stock is riding high and he has secured himself an influential position in the incoming administration. He is still the richest man on the planet. It’s astonishing that someone can win so much and still come across like such a loser. It’s bad enough that he’s using his immense wealth and power to promote far-right politics, but does have to be such a dork while going about it? It’s so undignified that this man, jumping in the air with a gormless grin on his face, is oppressing us all. But while Musk has got just about everything he wants, we’re not yet indentured servants on his Mars colony, and neurolink technology still isn’t at the stage where he can force us into believing that he’s funny and cool. While we still can, calling him a plonker is a profound act of resistance.

NARA SMITH (AND TRADWIVES IN GENERAL)

People can be very defensive of Nara Smith (annoyingly so) because choice feminism has rotted everyone’s brains. But in the wake of Trump’s re-election and X being flooded with right-wing, conservative rhetoric about women, their bodies and their place in society, I have zero patience for individuals like Smith or Hannah Neeleman (Ballerina Farm). Their content pushes sinister ideas around idealised femininity – how women should behave, act and appear. While they can’t control how their content is perceived, they are far from innocent in upholding and promoting subtle conservative values. I don’t trust them, and neither should you.

DREW BARRYMORE

Abolish prisons, but before we do any of that, please put Drew Berrymore in jail. Her talk show, where she feigns intimacy with other celebrities by invading their personal space, is the worst and I hate it. And who could forget the time when she told Kamala Harris that America needed her to be the “Momala of the country” and she was being deadass… Harris looked like she was fighting not to laugh in her face. No more feigned intimacy! We can all see straight through it. 👎🏾 (please note that this does not represent the views of the whole editorial team – just Halima). 

JOE BIDEN

It goes without saying that Donald Trump is a villain, but Joe Biden deserves more share of the blame than anyone else for the fact that he’s returning to power. Once he decided to run for a second term, despite his visible decline and opinion polls consistently showing a majority of Americans thought he was too old, it was game over. And guaranteeing Trump’s comeback is the least of his crimes. Outside of Israel itself, Biden is the only person on the planet with the power to unilaterally end the war on Gaza. Not only has he failed to do this, he has lied repeatedly to defend Israel (in one case spreading misinformation so outlandish that it outstripped even the IDF) and cast doubt on the – by all accounts credible – death tolls coming out of Gaza. Biden is a vain, doddering old fool who should go down in history as one of America’s worst presidents. 

THAT GRACIE ABRAMS VIDEO

I feel a bit guilty about this one as I have no beef with Gracie Abrams, it’s not really her fault that a clip from the video for “I Love You, I’m Sorry” became inescapable on social media earlier this year or that I willingly chose to press play every time it came up on my feed, and part of the reason it’s making my villains list is because the song is, while derivative of Phoebe Bridgers and the rest of the sad girl canon, infuriatingly catchy: “I love you, I’m sorry, you were the best, you were the worst, as sick as it sounds, I loved you first!” But by the hundredth time I saw it, her wild grinning, wide eyes and wacky expressions had started to grate.

It’s true that some of the criticism seemed to be missing the point, with people demanding to know why she was acting in a hyper-expressive, Disney channel sitcom style that was so out of step with the lyrics and tone of the song. That incongruity is clearly intentional, but just because it’s intentional doesn’t mean that it works. I have no idea what they were even going for and would love to see the concept board – is the point of the video that it’s supposed to be annoying? If so then congratulations, Ms Abrams, because on that score one of 2024’s most effective works of art. 

KEIR STARMER

Keir Starmer deserves a lot more than being featured in a ‘villains of the year’ listicle on Dazed (specifically, he deserves to be imprisoned at the Hague for aiding and abetting crimes against humanity), but we must do what we can. The Prime Minister has spent the last year shifting the Labour Party even further to the right, threatening to ban “gender ideology” from being taught in schools, bragging about being harsher than the Tories on immigration and continuing to provide diplomatic cover and unconditional support for Israel as it carries out a campaign which UN experts, Amnesty International and many others have have described as genocidal. There are no ICC arrest warrants for Starmer on the horizon, but at the very least he has suffered a historic drop in approval ratings, and we can hope that beneath his smug exterior some deeply repressed part of him is tortured by his complicity in the deaths of tens or even hundreds of thousands of innocent people.