Throughout 2024, it often felt hard to keep one’s bearings: Is the presidential campaign now a permanent state of being? Are Tesla robots and Apple headsets really going to be a thing? Is that a drone up there? There are many ways to grapple with these questions. But once again, I’ve set out to perform the annual ritual of assessing and unpacking the year gone by through the objects that captured our attention. Here, then, is the year in objects—the good, the unsettling, and the hard to explain.
Healthcare-assassin gear
It would be difficult to invent a scenario more suited to a modern media fever: the cold-blooded murder of a health-insurance executive in midtown Manhattan, sparking a frenzied manhunt. With only glimpses of visual evidence, real and amateur sleuths alike fixated on a few material details, notably the killer’s hooded jacket and backpack. In a late-stage-capitalism twist, many decided that these were rather stylish. The internet concluded that the jacket was a Levi’s “Sherpa Lined Two Pocket Hooded Trucker Jacket.” And while the shooter seemed to unexpectedly attain folk hero status (with pro-shooter merch popping up on Amazon and elsewhere), people were busy snapping up that jacket: 700 of them reportedly sold via Macy’s site in 48 hours.
The backpack also was swiftly identified as a Peak Design model, priced at around $280 in its current iteration. The killer evidently ditched it in Central Park (leaving some Monopoly money inside). For Peak, this macabre branding event surely brought new name recognition—but in yet another startling turn, this was followed by accusations that its CEO was a “rat” and a “snitch,” accompanied by threats against him and his employees for cooperating with law enforcement. He has denied compromising the privacy of an alleged killer, or any of his customers.
Owala water bottle
Not so long ago, the Stanley Tumbler seemed invincible in its domination of stylish hydration. But this year, as Fast Company’s Elizabeth Segran reported, competition in the $9.3 billion reusable water bottle sector reached new heights, with rival Owala establishing itself as the It Bottle of the moment. Its most notable feature is what it calls FreeSip design, meant to make it easier to sip through a straw when you’re taking it easy, or guzzle when you’re parched. The feature won positive reviews.
Functionality aside, Owala relied on bold color combinations in uncommon (odd?) patterns, consistent with the modern water bottle’s role as de facto fashion accessory. Fans not only liked the more idiosyncratic combos (even creating their own by swapping lids, much to the consternation of retailers), but embraced the eye-catching and lit markers worth bragging about on social media. As one fan put it in an Instagram post, lingering over the color selection in a Sam’s Club location: “Talk about a THIRST trap.”
Apple Vision Pro headset
The Apple Vision Pro mixed reality headset (or “spatial computer,” as the company calls it) made its debut early this year, but feels like it’s been around a lot longer. That lengthy hype ramp—hands-on reports started in 2023—may have worked against it. Widely touted as Apple’s most significant new product since the iPhone, the Vision Pro received mixed reviews: heavy, with limited practical use, and priced at an aggressive $3,500. By midyear, sales forecasts were trending to the low end of an initial 400,000 to 800,000 units shipping expectation, with later reports that Apple was scaling back production and may stop selling its current version altogether next year.
Then again, maybe sales weren’t really the point. Apple repeatedly emphasized that this was a first step into the category. So it’s probably more fair to consider it in the context of device-as-marketing, designed more for attention than actual sales—kind of like Meta touting its latest stab at a “glasses” product, which isn’t even on the market yet. The function of the Vision Pro is to demonstrate that Apple is participating in the future. And with 2024 proving another successful year for its actual product lines, it can clearly afford to do so.
Elaborate popcorn buckets
Seeing a movie on the big screen is all about the experience—living room recliner seats, giant-size concessions, enthusiastic audiences. Or maybe it’s about the popcorn bucket. Because this year, the once-humble container became an unlikely source of ballyhooed industrial design with a $50 price tag, Fast Company’s Grace Snelling reported. Thanks in large part to the viral frenzy around the novelty bucket—er, “collectible concession vessel”—promoting Dune: Part Two, presumably resembling a sandworm’s maw. There have been earlier container incarnations (plastic R2D2 bucket, Barbie bucket), but none were featured on Saturday Night Live as a teenager’s unlikely sex toy (its own song included). A similarly saucy social media pile on about the Dune bucket may not have been what the film’s marketers had in mind.
The attention ignited a concessions-vessel arms race—a key promo tool for, say, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and Inside Out 2. And since the designs are exclusive to the movie theater chains, that could mean different Deadpool & Wolverine buckets at Cinemark, Regal, and AMC. Theaters, which have long depended on pricey concessions as a profit center, love the trend, offering various items to moviegoers eager to go viral with the latest show-off container. Maybe this is what the moviegoing experience needed all along: a pricey, if odd, souvenir.
Trump’s ear bandage
The 2016 Trump campaign’s red Make America Great Again baseball caps were surely one of the most effective group-signaling symbols in modern political history—an “I Like Ike” button for the 21st century. Which makes it all the more remarkable that, as Fast Company’s Mark Wilson pointed out, the GOP found a new way to win the symbolic-image race again, just as MAGA hats were getting stale: The most striking visual aid at the Republican National Convention launching Trump’s third presidential run: the sea of white cotton bandages taped over attendees’ ear.
This homage to Trump, seemingly wearing a real bandage on his ear at the RNC only days after a would-be assassin’s bullet reportedly grazed him, was mocked by Democrats as embarrassing fealty. Supporters saw it as a material tribute to the courage of their candidate. So the mockery only added fuel to a political movement whose brand turned on the idea of being under attack, and passionately defiant. That message, of course, proved a winning one.
Tesla robots
Sometimes it seems like the only thing that can wrest attention away from Elon Musk is more Elon Musk. Case in point: At an event designed to hype Tesla’s Cybercab and Robovan, the planned autonomous vehicles were overshadowed by the presence of robots mingling with guests and even tending bar. These Tesla Optimus humanoid robots are designed to do certain factory work.
Musk had predicted they would be ready for deployment this year, but the technology (which competes with humanoid robot projects from Hyundai, Honda, and others) remains in development. And while the robot bartender got lots of buzz, it was a head fake: the robots at the event were being remote-controlled by actual humans. Humanoid robotic coworkers may indeed become a thing, but we’re not there yet. For now, we’ll have to settle for one learning from Kim Kardashian how to blow a kiss.
Costco gold bars
Costco has long been known for its $1.50 food-court hot dogs. This year, the brand got almost as much attention for selling actual gold bars, at $2,000 an ounce or more. Most of the sales were online, but Costco shoppers have been adding the gold to their in-person treasure hunts at the discount-club retailer, which is more often associated with bargains on consumer staples like toilet paper and eggs.
As unlikely an addition to the shopping cart as gold may be, Wells Fargo estimated that Costco gold sales were clocking in at between $100 million and $200 million a month. As spot gold prices climbed past $2,700 an ounce in October, many outlets that carried the bars were reportedly sold out. But the chain has only continued to mine this unlikely new revenue vein, adding platinum bars to the mix, at a little more than $1,000 an ounce. As an actual investment, most finance pros would probably say you could do better. But perhaps in uncertain economic times, there’s comforting value in a shiny object.
Beyoncé’s cowboy boots
Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter was a major musical event—and one of the year’s notable fashion and style moments. The pop superstar’s experiments with country music (and beyond) were accompanied by spikes of interest, and sales, in Western clothes and accessories. Boot sales got a bump following the release of the advance single “Texas Hold ’Em,” and kicked up 20% in the week after the album’s release, according to CNBC, boosting foot traffic for retailers like Boot Barn.
Beyoncé’s creative take on the Western aesthetic brought fresh attention to everything from high-end hat makers and Black boot designers to old-school staple Levi’s jeans (subject of a Cowboy Carter track that promptly inspired the brand to team up with her). But her adventurous taste in boots stood out: American flag cowboy boots, denim Louboutin boots, and hand-painted diamond-encrusted boots, to name a few. Even Billboard, known for its music industry coverage rather than fashion, published a shoppers guide for how to be in step with Beyoncé’s boot game.
Recalled meat
Liverwurst doesn’t get much time in the cultural spotlight. And when it did this year, the circumstances weren’t great: It was at the center of one of 2024’s most high-profile food recalls, a blow to the familiar Boar’s Head brand. More than 7 million pounds of Boar’s Head deli meat were recalled after being linked to a listeria outbreak that killed 10; much of this was liverwurst. After reports of “bugs, mold, and mildew” sightings at the plant linked to the outbreak, Boar’s Head decided to simply close the facility and stop producing liverwurst. (For the uninitiated, it’s a liver-derived sausage with “the look and consistency of wet cement”—and that’s how a fan describes it.)
Thus the cylindrical meat product became arguably the most visible symbol of what was, in fact, a banner year for food recalls, about double the number in 2012. There’s at least anecdotal evidence of consumers shying away from Boar’s Head and other processed deli meats. But as one researcher and food-safety advocate told Axios, the continued acceleration of global food production, consumer demand for ready-to-eat food, and regulatory shortcomings, make it likely that the recall trend is “going to increase before it gets better.”
Banana art
In a timeless Arrested Development scene, the idea of a $10 banana was a joke. In real life, the story of a $6.2 million banana seemed crafted as a contemporary fable of objects and value in the 21st century. An already infamous art work consisting of a banana duct-taped to the wall (the piece, by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, is called Comedian), sold at auction for more than 40 times its original price. This was taken by some as a boost to an art market that has lately been struggling. The buyer was a crypto entrepreneur named Justin Sun, whose art collection includes an NFT of a Pet Rock, and who has spent millions to lunch with Warren Buffet and join a commercial space flight. He called the piece a “cultural phenomenon that bridges the worlds of art, memes, and the cryptocurrency community.” Then he ate the banana.
This apparently provocative gesture was largely performative: The art-worthy banana obviously had to be replaced regularly. Still, the value of the banana that Sun ate was, in effect, 18 million times more than the 35-cent banana sold by the street vendor it came from. A New York Times reporter explained that the vendor, who makes $12 an hour, commented through tears: “I am a poor man.”
Dubai chocolate bar
Sometimes the world, the news, the internet, all seem consumed by doom and gloom. Other times, everyone seems obsessed with a decadent $20 chocolate bar from one of the planet’s wealthiest countries. Clips featuring Dubai-based Fix Dessert Chocolatier’s signature confection—pistachio-green goo and bits of crispy, shredded filo dough, encased in thick, color-swirled chocolate—exploded on TikTok, and the craving has not waned.
While the original sells like crazy to those in a position to snag one, the global market has whipped up alternatives well beyond the United Arab Emirates original: from a limited-run Lindt Dubai Chocolate Edition and variations at your local fancy bakery to home confectioners on social media. Apparently, no matter how worrying things may seem, everybody is ready for a decadent snack break.
Mystery drones
The most mysterious objects of the year arrived as 2024 was staggering to its conclusion: the unidentified flying ones spotted over New Jersey and nearby. Drones as a category of technology have hovered over the public consciousness for years now, deployed as everything from deadly weapons that have become a staple of the Ukraine-Russia conflict to delivery conveyances to hobbyist toys. But there was something spooky about the drone sightings that captured the imagination of many. (In fact, many of the reports seem to be imaginary—just sightings of routine airplanes and the like by an overly excitable public.)
When it appeared that government authorities either could not or would not offer an explanation, interest really soared. Turns out it’s hard for some to just shrug off reports of a swarm of unexplained flying robots. Social media launched conspiracy theories galore, from Iranian spies to secret military testing to infrastructure-attack schemes to good old-fashioned aliens. Even some lawmakers seemed panicked. Officials continue to reassure the public that there is no threat in all this, but somehow the mystery seemed like a fitting conclusion to a very strange year: the most compelling objects of 2024 may be the ones nobody can explain.
