What say that, since this is one of the least-read days of they year for PopCult, we take a look back at the damnable collection of odd months that was 2025.

It wasn’t all bad, of course, but the loss of several close friends, coupled with the current cancerous political climate definitely put a damper on things.

This was a year when we said goodbye too soon to Brian Young, Lee Harrah, Steve Fesenmaier, Greg Miller, Non Sport Update, American Science & Surplus, BOOP! The Musical, Fruth Pharmacy, Diamond Previews, several amendments and too many other things to list.

Yet, it was a good year for this blog. In 2025, PopCult had 423 posts. Those posts contained over 235,000 words, the most ever (even counting years where we had close to 600 posts). I can be wordy, sometimes.

There were 45 audio episodes of Radio Free Charleston on our sister internet radio station, The AIR.. Plus we had one video episode.

The AIR also featured close to 100 new episodes of our other original internet radio programs.

PopCult posts were viewed millions of times by a record number of unique visitors. Readership was up 110% over 2024. Listenership at The AIR also more than doubled. I’m pretty sure that PopCult now has more readers than our former home, The Charleston Gazette-Mail (I know that’s not a fair comparison, since their content is behind a paywall, but give a guy a chance to enjoy a small victory). It’s nice that, in our twentieth year, we can say that we have millions of readers. If only I weren’t too lazy to monetize this blog.

I am actually writing this in the late morning of January 1, 2026. I just wasn’t in the mood to write yesterday, and this morning my wife and I slept in, and then got mesmerized by the Twilight Zone marathon, so I got a late start.

To round things out and continue a new tradition, here are my ten favorite header images from the last year…

This STUFF TO DO header from February was adapted from a news photo of efforts to extinguish a house that exploded two blocks from where I live a few years ago.

This RFC header is a digitally-altered photo from The Embassy Suites Hotel in Lexington.

This header, swiped from a post by Bad Spit, on Twitter, just looks cool.

I ran this STUFF TO DO header while Charleston was hosting some kind of bicycle event. It amused me.

I just like the way this header for a review of the Gargon action figure looks.

One of the low-key headers based on photos I took at the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum.

One of several cool headers mutated from photos I took at the American Sign Museum in Cinncinnati.

Another Sign Museum shot for STUFF TO DO

Okay, so the phone number is for The White House. Caller ID is more accurate than ever these days.

And finally, a heartwarming image for STUFF TO DO from just a few weeks ago.

That is our quick and half-assed look back at 2025. Check back tomorrow and every day for fresh content and hardcore reporting on whatever the hell it is that we’re supposed to be writing about here.

Happy New Year!