Zombies and Fiscal Cliffs

The 10 most overhyped stories of 2012.

Comments (0) By Jeff Balke Wednesday, Jan 2 2013

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2. Zombie Apocalypse

This was sort of funny, clever even, until people on bath salts started eating the faces of anyone nearby. After that, legitimate media outlets, whose veteran anchors we assume were saying, "Oh, for fuck sake!" when they looked over the copy for the nightly news, were actually using the words "zombie apocalypse." I'm sure some local news team somewhere ran movie footage as part of their coverage package with the title of the film and "not actual zombies" at the bottom while Edward R. Murrow spun in his grave...assuming of course he's not...A ZOMBIE!!!

Ooh, baby, baby

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1. Mayan Calendar End of the World

If there was any clear winner this year, it was science. From the dead-on-accurate presidential polling from nerdy-pollster-turned-Internet-rockstar Nate Silver to the Billy D. Williams of science, Neil deGrasse Tyson, to the clever social networking of NASA, science was cool again. But still a whole bunch of crazy people believed the Mayan calendar ending signaled the end of the world. Science countered with, "You can't be serious because...no, seriously, you're joking, right?" December 21 came and went and, against all odds, we live on. Leading up to that fateful day, not a news outlet in the country didn't do something about Mayans and calendars and planets blowing up. It would have been funny if it weren't so head-shakingly ridiculous.