[ad_1]
Hunsnet creator Gareth Howells gives his end of year review.
The Queen passed away, Wagatha Christie entered her High Court era, Matt Hancock went on I’m a Celeb, Ukraine won Eurovision and the UK went through more prime ministers than seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race – well, nearly.
It’s fair to say 2022 was a year. As we bid farewell, social commentator extraordinaire, meme curator, and since August, author, Gareth Howells of Hunsnet gives his standout moments month by month.
January: Molly-Mae’s 24 Hours
As the world begrudgingly returned to work in January, Love Island contestant turned mega-influencer Molly-Mae Hague let us know that actually, capitalism isn’t weighted towards to privileged, because we all have the same 24 hours in a day as Beyoncé!
“To have [those wise words] filter through to us in January really gave me the lift that I needed to be able to start my year like a Tory girl boss,” Gareth said. “I find so much entertainment in people stating the obvious to you… It’s classic girlies in the smoking area of All Bar One.”
Molly-Mae is on a huge salary (reportedly £400,000 a month) as creative director of Pretty Little Thing – Gareth reminded us that her CV basically amounts to her having spent six weeks in Mallorca surrounded by topless men with more abs than brain cells.
“The delusion side of it is so entertaining.”
February: Partygate piccies
A series of Downing Street parties that took place during COVID-19 lockdowns – when such gatherings were prohibited by public health guidelines – dominated the news in in February after leaked images and details emerged.
While it “created the biggest fallout of the year”, the “low-budget” essence of the Partygate scandal proved that the Tories could never “out-hun the huns”, Gareth said.
“They were conducting themselves as huns! Going out with a little trolley suitcase … to the local off-license to fill up, then sneaking it back and it’s like: How dare these scoundrels think that they can use tactics that Huns would use?”
The scandal was one of the many, many contributing factors in Boris Johnson’s downfall, and as Gareth reminded the former PM: “You can have as many cheese platters as you want, Boris, but the huns will prevail!”
March: Claire from Steps’ Pasta à la Clara update
In 1998, Steps: The Video, showed with each member of the pop group giving us a brief tutorial on something. Claire taught us how to cook ‘Pasta à la Clara’, and the world never quite recovered.
Italy was shook in March when Claire gave the dish a 2022 update, going, Gareth explained, “from Smart Price to Sainsbury’s [packet ham]”.
“I’m here for the growth,” he added.
“The great thing about Pasta à la Clara is that it keeps coming back around – you forget about it for a few years, then somebody will put a meme out, probably me, and remember when Claire had a packet of ham, tin of soup and a bit of pasta and tried to pass it off as a culinary delight.”
“For Claire to … really expand our palate with the new version is great. Thanks, Claire.”
April: Hun overboard
In April, bonafide hun Lindsay Clark accidentally fell “a**e-over-t*t” trying to retrieve her friend’s jacket from behind a sofa during a brunch in North Shields.
It’s one of Gareth’s stand-out moments of 2022 º and a reminder that anyone can reach the heady heights of ‘chief hun’.
“The great thing about hun culture is that you’ve got the celeb side of it, but then you’ve got the pedestrian side of it as well,” he explained. “It’s these ‘What am I like?’ moments – she’ll be talking about this till the day she dies.
“I don’t know who the girl is … but I hope she’s got a merchandise range, a theatre show and a bedding range. She made national news … just because she fell down the back of the sofa at a bottomless brunch.”
May: Rebekah Vardy’s phone getting lost in the North Sea
Everyone remembers where they were when “It’s …….. Rebekah Vardy’s account” dropped in 2019, with Colleen Rooney kicking off Wagatha Christie by accusing Rebekah Vardy of leaking stories about her to the press.
2022 was the year the hun drama to end all hun dramas made it to the actual High Court, a twist so ridiculous Footballer’s Wives wouldn’t have even attempted it.
Part of Vardy’s argument was that her phone, which may have cleared up whether or not she was selling stories on Rooney to The Sun, fell overboard into the actual North Sea, so wasn’t submitted into evidence. A judge had absolutely none of it, and said the loss of the pivotal WhatsApp messages appeared “deliberate”.
“They found out [in court] that Rebekah Vardy may have been telling a porky – but it’s the way that it was weaved,” Gareth said.
“I don’t think the phone is at the bottom of the North Sea, because I know that there would be some huns who, after a night out at three o’clock in the morning would go ‘Right, let’s get our scuba diving gear on’. Huns get to the bottom of stuff.”
June: The Platty Joobs
In June, Queen Elizabeth II celebrated 70 years as monarch. The event was renamed by the huns as the ‘Platty Joobs’, making the face of every monarchist go redder than their chinos.
“I mean, huns love an abbreviation,” Gareth explained. “It’s the language that we communicate with. And the crossover with something as grand and camp as this massive royal occasion was just the stars aligning.”
Howells pointed out that if the huns hadn’t renamed it, they’d be “slagging it off.”
“Huns can take something so grand, so regal, and through a couple of words, bring it back down to the streets.”
July: Government implodes (Boris’s Version)
After a career built on dodging scandals, Boris Johnson was finally toppled in July as the vast majority of his cabinet resigned over his backing of MP Chris Pincher, who’d been accused of sexual misconduct.
Gareth found the timing curious.
“It’s the fact that they’d all been hanging around, through all of this s**t, and this was the moment of going: ‘F**k it, it’s the summer holidays, I’ve had enough now, we’re off to Butlins.’
“That’s classic hun; leaving the office at Christmas and chucking a match behind you … and then over those next two months, the very sharp rise and very sharp decline of Liz Truss.
“She was a very short-lived gift but she gave us a lot.”
August: The Hundamental Guide to Life: Learn to Live, Love & Laugh like a true HUN
In August, the UK was preoccupied with the first Tory leadership contest of the year.
As we now know, it turned out to be kinda irrelevant. So instead, let’s talk about Gareth Howells releasing his debut book, filled with more life lessons than you can shake a bottle of Echo Falls at.
While Gareth finds it “difficult to actually explain” hun culture, the book now acts as an essential benchmark where the huns were in 2022.
“[Hun culture] will evolve and turn into something else … but it’s a stake in the ground – it’s the Old Testament now.”
The book is also Howell’s effort to put ‘hun culture’ into the physical realm, given that it tends to inhabit Instagram.
“I appreciate that it’s not War and Peace, but … it’s the first written, on-record piece of literature to support hun culture.”
September: The Queue
When Queen Elizabeth II passed away, the traditional ‘Lying-In-State’ ceremony saw the public join a mega-queue to see her coffin in Westminster Hall.
‘The Queue’ reached 10 miles at its peak, and according to Gareth, generated some very “camp moments”.
“There was camaraderie in the queue that was so synonymous with huns because it’s that ‘Oh we’re gonna do it! Oh go on’ attitude. People were buying M&S tinnies, platters…”
“It was so brilliantly morbid – people were using [the queue] as a social media opportunity.”
The nation was united in mourning – and in absolute outrage at Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield.
October: Big Brother’s back
Big Brother is a firm Hunsnet staple – moments from seasons-gone-by remain fixtures in every hun’s vocabulary. A revival of the reality series was announced on ITVX in October.
“Big Brother is an opportunity to bring it back to all these things that we quote, some real quality content,” Gareth explained, noting the opportunity to move away from the endless run of Love Island influencers.
“You want the person with 38 followers who’s trying to be the influencer… people of an older generation, different body sizes, different looks, different gender identities … Big Brother can have a real cross-section [in its cast].
“I’d be fuming if it’s just Love Island in Barnwood.”
In November, the UK faced stock shortages of air fryers because people became so obsessed with them.
Note from Gareth: “I put that down because I went mad for it.
“People have now become air fryer snobby, so it’s all about the two-inch, or one with two drawers. I kept them at arm’s length, but then I got one from ASDA Living.”
He subsequently realised that he was using his oven alongside his air fryer which was “not doing anything for the cost of living … or the planet”.
Despite that: “I think they think they’re going to save the world. And I hope they do.”
December: Spotify Wrapped
Spotify release their annual Wrapped statistics in December, telling users how much Taylor Swift/ Megan Thee Stallion/ Phoebe Bridgers they’ve sung/ twerked/ cried to.
According to Gareth, it’s the hunniest way to wrap up the year: shameless self-promotion that “not one person cares about”.
“It’s an opportunity for people to brag about stuff that people don’t care about! I really don’t care that you’ve listened to hours of Girls Aloud.”
Gareth also mentioned the recent AI trend that every homosexual with a working camera jumped on, refusing on the grounds that he didn’t need to see an image telling him: “You should go and have surgery to look like picture three.”
Can’t say fairer than that!
Gareth Howell’s The Hundamental Guide to Life: Learn to Live, Love & Laugh like a true HUN, with foreword by Lisa Scott-Lee, is out now.
[ad_2]
