What was your social media platform of choice this year? If you were like us, you probably seesawed between several platforms for various reasons you can read below. Regardless of which platform you called home, all your feeds would have been invaded by a few loud stories this year. Now, because of how loud (and how many) there are, it’s understandable that you might have missed a few. As the year ends, let’s recap the top newsmakers for 2023.

Generative AI breaks the world

There’s no denying that artificial intelligence is the most talked-about technology of 2023. The year started with the rise of ChatGPT. It’s ending with everyone else building either their own model or an AI CPU.

Are you a believer or a doubter of AI? While some immediately heralded an AI-infused future for all of humanity, others (including the technology’s own pioneers) treaded carefully, decrying how dangerous the technology is. Regardless of which belief you leaned more on, AI is changing the world.

On a technical level, the easiest way to talk about AI is through the number of parameters and the computational power of a model or CPU. However, the technology is also taking no prisoners in the entertainment industry. For several months this year, Hollywood writers and actors went on strike to protest how studios were trying to replace them with AI. The technology’s story is far from over, but its effect this year earns it a spot on this recap.

Netflix fights against password sharing

The writing was on the wall for password sharers. Last year, Netflix, despite formerly condoning password sharing, announced that it will start curbing the practice this year. In the first quarter of 2023, the company added a new pricing scheme, charging users who use an account outside of the account’s assigned household. In fact, the platform even talked about banning sharers outright.

Restricting sharing isn’t the only major change, too. The service also got rid of one of its cheaper subscription tiers, shoehorning users to either more ads or a pricier subscription. On the bright side, the platform is slowly upping its content quality, thanks to widely successful adaptations this year, such as Scott Pilgrim Takes Off and One Piece.

The end of Twitter

The latter of half of 2022 sizzled with the rapid ascension of billionaire Elon Musk to the top of the Twitter corporate ladder. Through waves of controversy, Twitter’s new owner continued the trend this year by adding several changes, welcome and unwelcome, to the popular platform.

Naturally, the biggest change is the death of Twitter as a brand. Effectively canning the iconic blue bird, Twitter is now known as X. Likely to Musk’s dismay, the change never stuck. A lot of users still refer to the platform as “Twitter” or “Twitter/X.”

Besides the naming convention, the platform saw several features added, including voice and video calls. The company also hired a new CEO, Linda Yaccarino, to run the business side of the platform.

Threads briefly takes over

Following a string of controversial decisions from Twitter/X, Meta dropped its bombshell: an actual competitors to the former’s dominance. Unsurprisingly, Threads took the world by storm. The platform, helmed by Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram’s Adam Mosseri, earned millions of signups within only a few days of launching.

The app’s fairytale story didn’t last, though. Soon after its astronomical rise, interest just tapered off. In essence, Threads is a pared-down version of Twitter. Unfortunately, “pared down” means that it doesn’t have some of features that made Twitter so good over the years. For example, it didn’t have hashtags on launch. (It does now, but it’s a little bit late.)

Is the Threads story done? Probably not. As the app continues to add more features, it’s likely that you’ll hear from Zuckerberg and Mosseri in the future.

The darkening of Reddit

Speaking of social media, let’s turn our attention to Reddit. For a lot of Reddit users, the best way to use the platform is (or was) to use a third-party app. These apps allowed developers to tailor the experience and to add some features missing from the main app. As a company, Reddit wasn’t happy, though.

In a shocking decision earlier this year, the platform announced pricing changes for its API. Developers had to pay a lot more to access Reddit’s API, the crucial backbone behind these third-party apps. The new prices effectively cut off the smaller developers responsible for much of the slate of Reddit apps.

In retaliation, a good chunk of subreddits went dark and turned their communities private. While the protest didn’t do much to change Reddit’s mind, it was another example of social media platforms suddenly polarizing its users this year.

Everyone’s getting a handheld console

The handheld console wars are on! The Steam Deck heralded the ongoing war last year. Now, the battle for handheld gaming supremacy is in full swing. Throughout the year, the segment saw the launch of the ROG Ally and the Legion Go. Oh, and Valve also shadow dropped an OLED version of the Steam Deck soon after the Legion Go launched.

Players now have a lot of options for a handheld console. The segment isn’t going away anytime soon, too. Scarily silent this year, Nintendo has yet to announce or launch a successor to the Switch. One can imagine that the company has huge plans for the console in the next year or two.

Apple caves in

Apple is notorious for refusing to play ball with other mobile operating systems. Previously, when asked how to bridge differences between Android and iOS, Tim Cook notoriously told the public to just get an iPhone. However, in the latter half of the year, Apple just changed its tone. The company announced two major changes to bridge the gap between Android and iOS.

In September, Apple announced the first iPhone to adopt USB-C. For the first time, the iPhone was no longer hindered by an undying devotion to the Lightning cable. Apple wasn’t don’t yet, too. Only very recently, the company made the surprise announcement to adopt RCS in 2024. Though the changes likely stem from legislation (especially in the European Union), the long-standing zeitgeist of Apple refusing to adopt Android’s standards is slowly changing.

Grand Theft Auto VI breaks a YouTube record

To be fair, Grand Theft Auto VI was hardly on our radar this year. However, in the very brief time since it popped up on our feeds, the upcoming title never looked back.

When November ended, Rockstar Games suddenly announced that it will finally unveil the future of the Grand Theft Auto series, teasing a trailer coming in December. Now, the trailer is here. Even though a leaker spoiled the trailer’s reveal almost a day prior, the first Grand Theft Auto VI trailer quickly broke records. The sole video is now the most viewed non-music video in YouTube history after only 24 hours. In that span, the video garnered over 90 million views. The former record holder, Mr. Beast’s “Every Country On Earth Fights For $250,000,” only got 59 million views in 24 hours.