Generally, DCist strives to provide the most enlightened swath of life in our nation’s capital that we can muster. Whether it’s an inspiring public servant, politicians behaving badly, or even the quotidian nuisances of public transportation, we aim high.
But every once in a while, a story comes along that makes us blurt out in surprise: What the actual fuck?
In the past year, we’ve seen people make asses of themselves in the middle of a hurricane, attempt to retrieve personal effects by jumping off buildings, fight on the side of the road using unconventional weapons and post horribly embarrassing ads on the Internet. Oh, and then there was the time one resident’s attempt to buy a television went frightfully long.
Let’s relive the dumbest moments of 2012, shall we?
7. SoMo? Oh, no.
In early October, the Adams Morgan Main Street business partnership decided the intersection of 18th Street, U Street and Florida Avenue NW was having an identity crisis, even though most would readily name the area as the southern end of Adams Morgan. The organization’s genius plan? Rebrand the block as SoMo, as in “South Adams Morgan.” It was quite the stupid idea, but even worse, it loosened even further the floodgates holding back these arbitrary neighborhood names. Only a few weeks later, some dummy on a Popville (né Prince of Petworth) comment thread suggested he lived in the “GaP,” some kind of nether-region stuck between Petworth and Crestwood. But readers agreed with us, and clicked on the stupidity of SoMo 5,477 times.
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6. Fake Lotto Winner Causes Very Real Forehead Slaps
The whole nation caught lottery fever in March when the Mega Millions jackpot reached an eye-popping $656 million. We didn’t win, but then again, neither did Mirlande Wilson, a 37-year-old McDonald’s employee in Baltimore County who told the world that she did. First she claimed she refused to show anyone the ticket; then she claimed to have lost it. Zany conferences and media stakeouts ensued, but no payouts. Eventually, three friends from Maryland did claim a chunk of the jackpot, and they decided to enjoy their newfound lucre in anonymity. If there was a real loser in all of this, it was NBC4’s Shomari Stone, who generously braved a week hounding Wilson for a glimpse of her non-existent ticket. Our lottery coverage was a big winner, though with 26,513 clicks in total.
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5. Deathmatch in Fairfax
A busy Fairfax County road turned into the Thunderdome earlier this month when two men brawled in front of an idled tow truck. One combatant swung a chain, his opponent wielded a machete. And, oh, yeah, the tow truck was in flames.
Perhaps best of all was this quote from a Fairfax County Police spokesman, who graciously put up with a lot of reporters’ giggling when they called to inquire about the bizarre scene: “They’re not necessarily related, but one came from the other.” Whatever happened, it collected 11,702 hits.
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4. You Are Not Spider-man
OK, so your girlfriend tossing your sunglasses from one roof deck to the next is not exactly the stuff of Washington Post Date Lab. But that doesn’t mean you should attempt to turn your bad night out into a spectacle. Unfortunately for the man to whom this happened—but lucky for the 16,041 people who read the resulting story—attempting to leap between buildings, especially when one is drunk in Adams Morgan, is most inadvisable. After being taunted by his girlfriend that he couldn’t retrieve his glasses, a man on the roof of The Reef tried to jump one bar over to Millie and Al’s. He failed, and tumbled 18 feet. Still, he was relatively fortunate, breaking only one ankle and a lot of pride.
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3. Desperately Seeking Skrillex
In late October, a pair of roommates in a Mount Vernon Square apartment went to Craigslist in search of a third tenant of a very specific variety: a fellow “renaissance bro.” What exactly is the difference between a regular bro and a renaissance bro? We tried to break it down, and 18,714 readers tried to cope with prerequisites such as, “We don’t want bartenders/restaurant guys coming in late at night on weekdays and spraying their hot jazz all over our snuggly dreams.”
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2. Jimmy Krunye, Our Hurricane Hero
Just hours after Hurricane Sandy began its wet and windy rampage through the D.C. area, a young man in Bloomingdale figured he’d go out for a jog before the weather truly ramped up. Only, 27-year-old Jimmy Krunye ditched the usual running attire and settled only for a pair of sneakers, neon-striped shorts and a horse mask—no shirt. He strode through an NBC4 live-shot, and moments later became a viral sensation on a day when everyone was stuck at home with nothing better to do than click the internet. Between our original post of this sub-Reddit come to life and our follow-up interview, Krunye’s stunt pulled in 67,670 clicks, good enough to be our second most popular non-gallery story of the year.
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1. Man Orders TV on Amazon; Receives Semi-Automatic Rifle Instead
Amazon, the Internet’s largest direct retailer, also serves as a conduit for third-party merchants looking for a reliable Web platform. Even so, most orders placed via Amazon’s system result in the proper delivery. Not so for Seth Horvitz, a Northeast D.C. resident who thought he was buying a flat-screen television back in August. But the shipment did not arrive in a television-shaped box. Horvitz opened the package and recoiled when he saw, in place of the 39-inch Westinghouse LED television he paid for, a Sig Sauer SIG716 semi-automatic rifle. He called the Metropolitan Police Department, which sent out officers to confiscate the gun, which is very, very illegal in the District of Columbia, but not before posing for a few photos with the accidental firearm. It was DCist’s single most popular news story of the year, with 99,615 clicks on the first post and another 14,615 on our interview with Horvitz.
So, farewell to 2012, a year that made us groan audibly over and over again. May 2013 be just as nonsensical.
