As the year comes to a close, the Trojan Voice staff is looking back on their favorite moments of 2019. It’s always good to take a moment to review the year, and it’s even more fun to review things that made you laugh or stuck in your mind. Below you’ll find the good, the bad and the funny memories of the past 365 days.

Area 51 Raid – Emma McNeeley, feature editor

The Area 51 raid stands out to me for hilarious reasons. A comedic Facebook group event appeared on June 27 called “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us.” Before long, more than two million alien believers signed on to attend and another 1.5 million said they were “interested” in meeting up at the highly classified United States Air Force base in Nevada. It lead to many memes and good laughs among everyone involved. Lil Nas X made a cartoon video inspired by the joke, and a few people even showed up at the gates with signs, but it was overall a goofy event that startled the Air Force, who asked people not to storm the site for their safety. So no alien life was discovered, but maybe E.T. was nearby watching us, and proud of us. 

VSCO – Jenna Tupitza, editor-in-chief

The VSCO trend stands out to me the most from 2019 because you couldn’t avoid hearing phrases like “sksksk” and “and I oop” being said loud and proud to mimic a trend setter from Youtube, Jasmine Masters. The VSCO trend is defined by white Vans, Birkenstocks, Crocs, scrunchies, metal water bottles, oversized T-shirts and a surface level desire to save turtles. This trend arose from Instagram and TikTok users influencing one another to bring back these old styles, but the strange name comes from a photography editing app by the same name, even though it really doesn’t have much to do with the app. While it created a style, it was completely overrated because this “new trend” was just old trends coming back. Vans, oversized shirts and scrunchies were trendy in the 80s, Crocs became popular around 2006, and Birkenstocks were in style in the 60s. I guess everything old was new again in 2019.

Endgame – Alex Hopkins, web editor

The summer for 2019  released a lot of great movies, but to me “Avengers: Endgame” is by far the best. Not only did the movie beat every box office record, trumping “Avatar” by $500,000, but it also brought the ten-year-long “Avengers” saga to a close. While it’s true that Disney and Marvel will continue making superhero films, Endgame marked the end of an era. Viewers said goodbye to some of the franchise’s greatest heroes and heroines, specifically Robert Downey Jr.’s Ironman, Scarlette Johanson’s Black Widow (a stand alone movie is rumored but not confirmed) and Chris Evans’s Captain America. The movie also paved the way for the stories of new heroes, like Tom Holland’s Spider-man or Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel. Where the franchise goes is undetermined, but one thing remains: “Endgame” will always be “loved 3,000.”

Disney+ – Jillian Preston, staff writer

Disney+ broke the internet during the last few months of 2019. You can’t scroll anywhere on social media without seeing a picture of a baby Yoda or someone asking for movie suggestions. It was released on Nov. 12 and many people didn’t even know about the new streaming service prior to its release. However, that did not stop a record 10 million subscribers from signing up on the first day. Every Disney/Pixar movie you’ve ever watched or wanted to watch is on Disney+, and only on Disney+. The company broke ties with other streaming services to promote its archive of films as well as its own original series and movies just like Netflix and Hulu. Disney+ is already a bigger success than anyone could have imagined, possibly bigger than the bunch of balloons that carry away Mr. Fredrickson’s house. 

TikTok- Ashlee Patron, copy editor

Previously known as Musical.ly, TikTok is a social media platform used for creating, sharing and discovering short videos. Musical.ly was widely popular, with roughly 800 million users until it’s demise in August 2018.  The app was taken over by the Chinese company ByteDance, and the users of Musical.ly along with their accounts and information were moved to TikTok. TikTok is generally based on Musical.ly and its features, but in September TikTok began to step up its game with new features. A reaction feature was added, which allows users to record their reactions to videos and share. TikTok users can create a variety of videos ranging from challenges and dances to tutorials and comedy. This addictive platform creates more trends and adds more hashtags everyday to keep users hooked. So grab your phone and start scrolling, because there’s hundreds of videos to look through before the year is out and into 2020. 

U.S. Women’s National Team – Isabelle Southard, photographer

The United States Women’s National team made history yet again in 2019  by adding another star to their soccer jerseys. In the summer of 2019, the team worked its way to victory by beating the Netherlands in the final game with a score of 2-0. Returning veteran striker Megan Rapinoe put the U.S. team on the board by scoring a perfect penalty kick and midfielder Rose Lavelle finished off the game with another goal in the 69th minute. Let’s not forget their opening game against Thailand with a score of 13-0, thus marking the most goals in a single game for the tournament, led by lead scorer Alex Morgan. Now with four World Cup Championships, on-field competition was not the only one the women’s national team had to face in 2019. Highlighted by the tournament, the 28 players announced on March 8, that they filed a lawsuit against U.S. soccer accusing it of gender discrimination. They stated that the organization violated two federal laws: the Equal Pay Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This is a case that will continue into 2020.

Mrs. Weiss

Association of Scholastic Broadcasting Workshop — Stephanie Weiss, adviser

Working in media education can be a lonely profession in terms of being able to collaborate with other teachers who really get what kind of chaos media teachers face in their classrooms on a daily basis. That’s why I was so grateful this summer to have the opportunity to meet with 37 passionate, talented and equally burned-out teachers from all over the country to share our love of student-made journalism. The week in Springfield, Mo., revived my own passion for teaching and increased my confidence in what I do everyday. I will be forever grateful to the Millcreek Education Foundation for giving me the opportunity to attend the workshop through a teacher grant because I look to what I learned there regularly, and it has made all the difference in 2019 and for years to come.

Gas Leak at McDowell- Aaryah Belczyk, layout design? 

McDowell experienced a big bump kicking off this school year. Our district was surprised to hear that there was a gas leak in the Intermediate and High School at McDowell. I was sitting in my second period block when Dr. C came over the announcements telling everyone to evacuate. At first I thought it was for a drill we were supposed to have during tutorial, but I was stunned when I heard the words “gas leak” and “this is not a drill”. Everyone from MIHS was escorted to the High School. Then we went into the gym (or at least the majority did). Once everyone got with their classes and took a seat no one knew what was going on. I was texting my mom the whole time wishing for that message that read we could go home. But then she called me and I was jumping for joy when she said we got to leave. Following this the teachers explained how we would be let out and what would be done with our things. Afterwords I walked to Co-fair with my friend and my mom picked us up. We got food and headed back to my house. The rest of the week we had off was awesome. I was sad to hear we had to go back on Monday. But I am grateful for the time we had off and that I was apart of this memorable experience.