By Danielle Brooks |Staff Writer|

The twerk-a-licious trends of 2014, including wacky dance moves, hip slang words, and lots and lots of ice, have shifted the image of pop culture.

Websites like Vine made dances like twerking, the nae nae, and the shmoney dance popular.
“Vine really popped off in 2014,” said Richard Burrud. “I can’t go anywhere without someone saying ‘about a week ago’ and breaking into the shmoney dance and a lot of slang words like ‘bae’ and ‘or nah’ came from the app.”

Slang words we use everyday, such as “selfie” have not only been made into songs, but appear in the dictionary.

Webster Dictionary defines a selfie as “a photograph that one takes of oneself with a digital camera or a front-facing smartphone, tablet, or webcam, especially for posting on a social-networking or photo-sharing website.”

Just as all of these dances and slang words went viral through social media this year, the phrase “Do you want to build a snowman?” became a household saying.

Another popular item is Disney’s “Frozen,” which seems to have taken the world by storm.
Although the film came out in 2013, “Frozen” won an Academy Award for Best Animated film in March 2014; a year after the release of the movie, “Frozen” is still extremely popular.

“While ‘Frozen’ has proved a hit with children around the world, the plot-line was also attractive to the parents. Around one in five parents are planning to buy an item of merchandise from the animated film for their daughters, according to the annual Holiday Top Toys survey from America’s National Retail Federation,” stated Caroline McGuire from Mail Online.

Another ice-related trend that took over the internet was the Amyotropic Lateral Sclerosi (ALS) ice bucket challenge that involved dumping a bucket of ice on oneself, recording the activity, and posting it to social media to raise awareness.

“I didn’t participate in the ALS challenge because I felt that it wasn’t necessary to dump ice on myself when I could just donate money, but I did have a lot of friends participate in the challenge who posted their videos on Instagram,” said Joanna Ayon.

It seemed that this year was a good one for women in the media. Women not only dominated movies, but also the music industry. Artists such as Iggy Azalea, who dominated the hip-hop world, and Taylor Swift, who made the transition from a country artist to a pop artist.

“A year ago I had never heard of Iggy Azalea, but now I’m a huge fan of hers and I respect her as a hip-hop artist,” said Leksi Simic.

Iggy debuted her first single, “Fancy” in early 2014, and became an instant sensation due to her Australian roots and unique image of a female hip-hop artist.

In previous years, Taylor Swift topped the charts with her catchy tunes and heartbreaking songs about relationships, but in 2014 she surprised everyone with her new musical style.

“I’m so obsessed with Taylor Swift right now,” said Mollie McGrady. “I can’t stop listening to her new song Blank Spaces and I’m excited for her World Tour in 2015.”

As we can see, 2014 was an exciting year, filled with interesting trends. We can only look forward to the spontaneous pop culture trends that we will see in 2015.