Baffling fashion trend

Despite being a word that's only ever been said aloud with any real sincerity by fashion writers, this year's biggest fashion trend has been "normcore": the act of wearing regular clothes, just like everyone in the world who isn't Alexa Chung already did all the time anyway. Normcore began as a relatively intelligent observation – that people are developing fluid, Zelig-style identities to help them adapt in multiple situations – but now it's mutated into a buzzword where everyone shouts "Normcore! LOL!" whenever they see anyone wearing flip-flops by a swimming pool. Fashion is difficult.

Best meme

"I've seen The Dark Knight," thought Ben Affleck as he zipped up his brand new Batsuit ahead of his first promotional Batman v Superman photoshoot. "Batman is a brooding figure, weighed down by a tragic past and a responsibility to clean up a corrupt city that must never discover his identity. I know exactly what this photo needs." So Affleck stepped on to set, took a deep breath … and slumped down like a forlorn toddler staring at a dropped Mr Whippy. Thus, Sad Batman was born. First the internet started guessing why he looked so sad (he'd locked his keys in the Batmobile; Alfred forgot to pick him up), then eventually just Photoshopped him despondently pushing an empty swing. The internet gets the hero it deserves, but not the one it needs.

Worst new term

The best way to judge the power of a new phrase is to see how short a time it takes for you to become violently sick of it. In which case, "conscious uncoupling" – the term used by Gwyneth Paltrow to describe her separation from Chris Martin – is the most powerful phrase ever created. Yes, the deluge of tweets and headlines and jokes that all dementedly broke their back to shoehorn a reference to conscious uncoupling were tedious enough, but the term itself might be the first in history to actively repel its audience within its first three syllables. What does it even mean, anyway? And what's the alternative? Unconscious uncoupling? Doesn't that mean you dump someone in your sleep? Anyway, the next person to say "conscious uncoupling" out loud gets a slapped face.

Newest bogeyman

Whatever happens to be going on in Iraq at the moment, you can't deny that Isis is a much more media-friendly terrorist operation than al-Qaida. Its name isn't just shorter and easier to pronounce than al-Qaida's – it also makes the group sound like something from one of the less good Bond films. The Isis leader is a millionaire who claims to command more than a billion Muslims. That, combined with the 7/7 anniversary and all the extra airport security going on at the moment, sounds like all the media needs to stoke up a brand new wave of petrified Islamophobia. It's like the bad old days of 2001 all over again. Runner-up: whatever food the newspapers say will definitely give you cancer today.

Best disappointing British exit from a sporting event

In terms of British sport, 2014 has been one long damp fart. The England cricket team didn't win the Ashes in January, and then collapsed against Sri Lanka in June. The England rugby team dissolved against New Zealand. Those weirdos across the street from you barely had time to cover their house with St George's crosses before the England football team died a dismal death at the World Cup. And yet there was something about Andy Murray's Wimbledon defeat that outclassed everything else. It wasn't just a loss. It was a full-on psychological meltdown. It was like watching The Royal Tenenbaums. The year is still young, so realistically Tom Daley could best Murray in this category and crash out of the Commonwealth Games by daubing the word "WHY?" across his chest and then beating himself around the head with a tin tray, but that seems unlikely.

Most overused pop-culture reference

Look, the media, we get it. You like Game of Thrones. It's got dragons in it and sometimes people take their clothes off. We get it. But that doesn't mean that you have to compare every single thing you write about to it. Toby Young has compared the Conservative power struggle to the battle for the Iron Throne. Most media outlets have claimed that the wall in Fukushima is like the north Wall. Elections are like Game of Thrones. King Juan Carlos I's abdication is like Game of Thrones. Journalism is like Game of Thrones. At least that last one is partly true, given that 85% of journalists look like the Hound, but that's about it.

Prematurely predicted political earthquake

The local elections in May were notable for two things. First, almost nobody in the entire country gave even a billionth of a toss about them, and second, Ukip went into them promising to ignite a political earthquake like no other. In the end, despite gaining almost blanket media coverage in the run-up to the election, they failed to gain a single local authority. On top of that, they actually saw their share of the vote decline. If this was an earthquake, it was one of those exceptionally British ones that everyone sleeps through, where the worst thing that happens is that a commemorative Charles and Diana plate slips off a mantlepiece in Chichester and lands on a pile of Bella magazines.

Best filmed celebrity tantrum in a lift that was subsequently leaked on the internet

Even if millions of celebrity lift tantrums had been leaked to the internet so far this year, there would only ever be one winner. When Solange Knowles attacked Jay Z with every single part of her body at once, she wasn't just demonstrating an enviable level of furious athleticism. She was also letting us peek behind the curtain of the most powerful couple in the entertainment business. Why did Solange go after Jay Z with such ferocity? Why didn't Beyonce try to intervene? If she did, who would she have sided with? Does having  an interest in this make you no better than a slackjawed Sidebar of Shame reader? Yes? This is a shame.

All-conquering hashtag

Following the Isla Vista killings in California, Twitter users started to append stories of misogyny with the hashtag #Yesallwomen to demonstrate how widespread violence against women was. The stories shared were equally shocking and eye-opening and, even though the message has since been diluted by too many rush-written thinkpieces on the subject, they were enough to ensure that no other hashtag will be quite as indelible this year. Not even #HarryDontLickAnything.

Most dangerous smartphone trend

It's not a lot of fun to watch the Tour de France whiz through your home town. You stand there for hours, buying sweets from all the opportunistic stalls that have set up along the course, until you've been rendered almost catatonic by the whole thing. Then, whoosh, a couple of dozen bikes zip past you in a blur and you have to go home again. Perhaps this is why people have taken to wandering out into the middle of road, waiting for the bikes to appear, turning their backs on the cyclists and snapping a selfie with them as they zoom by. Sure, the riders have called this trend "dangerous" and a "pain in the arse", but they don't understand how important it is to look cool on Instagram. You do, though. You do.

Top hacking revelation

The phone-hacking trial threw up more than its fair share of heroes and villains, but lurking somewhere between the two was the racehorse trainer and husband of Rebekah Brooks, Charlie Brooks. He was cleared on the charge of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, but not before his inhumanly vast appetites were revealed to the court. In 1986, it was claimed, Brooks ate a whole roast chicken and two packets of Weetabix while trying to be selected as a jockey. This berserk breakfast/dinner combination didn't sit well with him, so he tried to vomit it back up by tickling his throat with a pheasant's feather. And then, when that didn't work, he drank a pint of Fairy Liquid. God bless you, Charlie, you ruddy-faced Wodehouse character of a man.

• Best films of 2014 (so far)
• Best albums of 2014 (so far)
• Best TV of the year (so far)