Ugly 2013 | Top 50 CERTIFIED |

The social atmosphere of 2013, preserved in the amber of old Facebook statuses and blurry Vine loops, further cements its “ugly” status. This was the peak of “random humor”—memes like “Overly Attached Girlfriend,” “Insanity Wolf,” and the ubiquitous “one does not simply.” It was a time when people unironically posted “#YOLO” before doing something moderately foolish and shared minion memes with broken English. This was before algorithmic curation polished our feeds into slick, aspirational highlight reels. Social media was still a messy, public living room where people argued loudly, posted poorly lit photos of their dinner, and shared chain letters. It was raw, unfiltered, and often cringeworthy. But that cringe was the sound of authenticity being tested. It was a brief, chaotic window before the rise of Instagram minimalism and LinkedIn professionalism, when the online self was still allowed to be awkward, needy, and real.

Ugliness, in this context, becomes a historical virtue. A perfectly beautiful era leaves little room for growth; it is a sealed, finished product. The ugly era, by contrast, is alive with friction, experimentation, and change. 2013 was ugly because it was trying. It was trying to figure out how to dress for the internet, how to talk to strangers across the globe, and how to present a self that was both physical and digital. We look back and cringe not because it was a mistake, but because we recognize ourselves in its awkward, earnest, poorly-lit face. In the grand cycle of aesthetics, 2013 stands as a monument to the beautiful necessity of being, for a little while, truly and honestly ugly. ugly 2013

The most immediate evidence of 2013’s aesthetic crime scene is fashion. This was the year of the “going out top”—a stretchy, bejeweled, peplum-hemmed disaster worn over denim shorts and opaque tights. It was the year of the statement necklace so large it resembled a protective shield, of galaxy-print leggings, and of men wearing fedoras with ironic detachment that was not yet distinguishable from earnest commitment. On the surface, this was a riot of bad choices. But beneath the neon neoprene and the ubiquitous chevron pattern, 2013 fashion was performing a radical act of democratization. The rise of fast fashion giants like Boohoo and the continued dominance of Forever 21 meant trends no longer trickled down from runways; they exploded horizontally across Tumblr dashboards. The result was a frantic, collage-like style where high and low, vintage and futuristic (often in the form of a cheap holographic finish) coexisted without mediation. It was ugly because it was unmediated—a raw expression of individual desire untethered from the slow wisdom of tailoring and taste. The social atmosphere of 2013, preserved in the