I'm an anniversary person. Always have been, always will be. Not in the way where I post a picture with a novel of a caption on an anniversary with a boyfriend. I like those for very different reasons; chief among them being that it's a very public way of announcing that the couple is barely hanging on by a thread, having nothing in common anymore despite the guy's favorite football team winning the Super Bowl and them having been "through their ups and downs" as they amble through their sham of a relationship on auto-pilot.
My toxic love of schadenfreude aside, my favorite kind of anniversaries are the oddly specific ones. Whether it's the anniversary of my roommate losing her virginity or my first time getting to third base at a John Mayer concert (but it was standing up so it didn’t count), these seemingly meaningless anniversaries are a way of breathing life back into a very extended holiday season and of course, bringing more attention to myself. They ensure there's always something to celebrate. But most of all, I see them as a time to reflect.
That's why I think it's crucial during these unquestionably chaotic times to bring everyone's attention to the fact that today is the ten year anniversary of the news that Mary-Kate Olsen made out with Kanye West at his birthday party. Yes, this happened. Yes, I set a reminder on my calendar. And yes, I get paid to write about this sh*t. And what about it?
The summer of 2011 compared to now was an age of innocence. The ubiquity of social media hadn't even neared its peak, so celebrity entanglements and scandals were largely clandestine and wedged a divide between the haves and have-nots. Teenagers back then only had to worry about SATs, what to wear to Spring Fling, and random boners in class. Nowadays, they skipped the awkward phase completely and are more concerned with getting aired out on TikTok or even worse, getting DM'd by Chris D'Elia or Dave Portnoy. So it was an earth-shattering moment in pop culture history when we found out from the tabloids that Mary-Kate Olsen and Kanye West drunkenly made out at his birthday party.
Kanye West and The Olsen twins pic.twitter.com/cH4CiKcVXJ
— FamousTogether™ (@FamousTogether) February 27, 2014
The May-December relationship potential (OK fine, May-November? She was 24, he was 34). The idea of two Geminis drunkenly joining forces in merriment, mirth, and unfettered chaos. The fact that a 5'2 waif of a woman knew to STAY IN HER LANE by hooking up with a guy that's 5'8 so that tall girls had access to the tall men. What a concept! What a rarity! What a gift!
Nowadays, when fame is easily accessed with the purchase of 100,000 followers and a boob job and the once-isolated glitterati is accessible by means of a $150 Cameo or a post on DeuxMoi, we can't help but reflect on a time where there was once such a disparity between the elite and the normies.
While I now know more about Leonardo DiCaprio's sex life than my own, I believe that there is a full circle moment to be appreciated here: the summer of good looking sex between unlikely couples. Now, I'm aware that Mary-Kate and Kanye could've gone their separate ways once it was last call, but this 2011 make out sesh foreshadows the undeniable trend of summer 2021: dangerously attractive celebs are pairing off with f*ck buddies we would have never expected.
I mean, Megan Fox and MGK? Kourtney and Travis Barker? J. Lo and Ben Affleck again?!? And now Kanye and Irina? So much combustible tension and passion, so many "anon pls" DMs submitted to DeuxMoi, so much sexually charged eye contact during dinners from American Bar and Soho House to Chiltern Firehouse and Chateau Marmont.
And now that we are all vaxxed and waxxed, get ready to get rude and nude because ten years later, we are finally revisiting the summer of controversial couples and good looking sex. So go on, make out with a hot weirdo - at the very least, it'll make headlines in the group chat.
[Photo via Getty]