2025 BACKIES

0:00Luckily, as optimistic guys, we don't focus on the bad. that's true uh we're we're posi positive yeah we're keeping it positive so yeah yeah 20 twice maybe we shouldn't even do the back no in classic form we we have to do the backies i'm such a positive guy these days i don't know that i need to get to this negativity you know i'm a reformed hater 100 agree but yeah no kevin this is the backies

0:30you know i'm looking through my phone i started looking through my phone when you were in the bathroom okay uh honestly i don't have anything bad what i don't i don't take pictures of bad things in my phone i wish i had my phone so i could like look at some of the things and maybe like come up with something that bad happened to me oh i got i got this uh i got this really bad bruise on my back of my hip. I hit a rock when I was skiing and it created a massive gash in my hip. I threw some duct tape on and kept skiing. No big deal. I'm a hoss. Wow. Yeah. The year just keeps coming. The years keep coming.

1:07This year sucked. This year went super fast. 2025. I'm not ready for 2026. Just when I finally got used to writing 2025, I got to start writing 2026. Yeah, this is the backies. This is the compliment episode to the fronties where we try our best to find it inside of ourselves to be haters, you know, as reformed haters. It's hard, you know. We used to be people that would just hate on so many things and it was so easy. But now we're older, we're wiser, and we're a bit more positive as a podcast. Absolutely. So it's harder for us to do this show. Yeah, no, I was just kidding about it's been a shitty year.

1:47It's actually been a very good year. It's been a great year. I'm just going to say it's been one of the best years of my life. But, you know. But, of course. I would never. I'm not one to say I can't complain. Yeah. I can complain. That's the thing. It's like I'm not here to complain, but, you know, we have to. We have to do it for the podcast, for the show. We got to talk about some of the worst of the year. What was the worst of your year? I think the clear, very worst thing that happened to me this year was at the very beginning of my marathon training, I was out there on a very, very hot day and I got hit.

2:18It was very hot. It was very, very hot. It was fucking hot. And I was out there and I was a little delirious and I wasn't necessarily in the right mindset at like 730 in the morning out there on the streets. and I got fucking slammed into the pavement by a fucking bike rider that hit me down real hard. It smashed my head, went to the hospital, a bunch of stitches, potential concussion. But you know what? I'm a warrior. There you go. Start of the championship DVD. It was the start of my championship documentary for my marathon, which I did win and I did complete. And, you know, it knocked me off path of my training for a little bit.

2:55But you know what? Not for too long. Yeah. And to all the bikers out there, fuck you. Just kidding. To all the runners out there, make sure you look both directions. Get out of the lane. Stop biking so fast down Kent Avenue. Stop biking in the bike lane. Yeah, stop biking in the goddamn bike lane, man. We're out here trying to run. We're trying to train. We're trying to get these miles up. Yeah, it's only the runners who are out there trying to train. That's right. Get the bikers out of here. Oh, my God. We're trying to run in peace. Trying to run in peace. All right, Kevin. Kevin, so this is the worst stories of the year.

3:31You don't want to know what the worst thing that happened to me this year was? Oh, I thought it was the rock you hit. No? Oh, no, that wasn't that bad. The worst thing that happened to me is I blacked out at a friend's wedding and unleashed demons inside of me. Wow. Tell me more about this. Oh, you know, just had a - A couple too many? I was on a war path drinking a million martinis and had a couple too many. Overserved, overserved. Yeah, I was greatly overserved. I don't really stand by anything I did that night. I mean, I didn't really do anything that bad. In front of the family? No, not in front.

4:02It was a personal. Oh, it was a friend's wedding. Okay, that's bad. I've learned better than to black out at a family wedding. They don't like that too much. But I got out of there before anything got out of hand. But I did throw up on a subway. Wow. Not inside of the subway. Wow. Nice. But on the outside of a train. Really? On the outside of a train? Wait, so were you waiting for the train to come and then it came and you puked on it? Yeah, it jostled me. and I was like, let's get on this train. And then I went, on the side. You would assume that you would have been nauseous by riding the train, but no, it was the train arriving that got you.

4:36We sat back down and waited for the next one and I made it home. Wow, puke and rally. By the grace of God, I made it home. Yeah, you know, it happens. It happens. Those dirty martinis will sneak up. Oh yeah. I had three last night and it was good. Three is the max. Once you get to four. Yeah, three is too many. I had three last night. They were small, so it wasn't too bad. But yeah, no. You got to watch out. Got to watch out for those dirty martinis. Kevin, the backies, we're going to start before we get into the words, things that happened, bad things that happened this year. According to Front Center, too much AI.

5:14I think it's too much talking about AI is really the problem. It's not so much the AI that I have a problem with. It's the talking about AI. Oh, it's really just the LinkedIn AI stuff where it's like, we recreated this ad and it's like you didn't do anything like man you can recreate whatever you want like i don't know good job i'm really formulating an opinion on ai which is i'm sick of talking about it i'm sick of talking about it and you know what use it everybody use it we're all using it we should all use it it's i know we're we're getting uh you know to a place where uh we're starting to get more comfortable with it in five years everyone's gonna be using it we're gonna look back at this and we're gonna be like yeah remember we like we're trying to fight.

5:55Stop calling people out for using it. Stop trying to shame people for using it. It's going to be used. There's no way around it. Stop shaming people and stop talking about it. I don't know. It's a bit of a resource quandary for me. I don't think it's very green. I don't like what it's doing. People aren't thinking anymore. So you're not going to use Google or your phone or any other website that uses tons of energy? No, I'm not saying that. I think it's a moral quandary. there's so many things that cause resource drainage that are yeah but with that i know but everyone if everyone has that attitude or whatever you know there's a million things you're going to use those things you're going to use oh i know but that's why we're in this situation yeah what ai is running out of resources yeah but ai is not the problem for of resources that's i mean it is a resource problem energy data centers oh my god yeah so stop using uh google or internet or Instagram or Facebook or whatever.

6:53Those things I'll use fucking resources too. All right. Okay. Protein. Be nothing to me. Too much protein. Too much protein. We hit Pete Protein. Just stop talking about protein. Yeah, stop it. Stop putting it in things. Stop enriching foods with it. Stop just, again, put it in foods. Call it out on your packages. Just stop talking about it. Stop talking about Pete. Too much noise. Too much talking about AI. Too much talking about protein. Eggs got expensive. That happened this year. That feels like a long time ago. What a crazy time. Are eggs a normal price again, Kevin? Eggs came back down, yes.

7:21I'm happy to report Trello Farms regular price. Eight bucks a dozen for farm fresh eggs. I'm also happy to report I had three eggs this morning. Wow. Look at you. A little three martinis followed up with three eggs. That's what we do, Kevin. That's how we do it. EPG. Remember that story? The EPG monopoly. Yeah. David bought the factory that makes the EPG. Whatever happened there, they just - People forgot. Yeah, they forgot. They probably - And those other companies? Dead. Yep. RIP. RIP. You hate to see it. EPG, yeah, we're still TBD on EPG. What it does to your insides and your intestines. Jury's still out.

7:59Yeah, liquid poops, I think, is the answer. Yeah, I don't know. I can neither confirm nor deny. Crumble cookie, one of the worst things that happened this year. A 1 ,200-calorie cookie that looks like a cake. Get it out of here. Yeah. Who's eating these things, Kevin? I don't know. Who the fuck is eating these things? I don't know. I couldn't tell you. Dubai chocolate. Yeah, this is a trend that I need to see. Get the hell out of here. I just sold Hershey's release of Dubai chocolate. I tried a good... Oh, you tried? I tried some. Okay. Not the Hershey's. I tried a good brand. Okay. Fine. Didn't get it?

8:33I would not pay$13 for a chocolate bar. Here's the thing. Price aside, I liked it. Yeah, I thought it was fine. I'd rather have like a... I don't know if it's really backy. I'd rather go get like a baklava or something. No, baklava is incredible. I told you that I had baklava for the first time. just within the last couple of years because of my nut allergy that I dominated and defeated. Bakalava, one of the great treats of all time. Absolutely. Top Mount Rushmore dessert for sure. I would throw, melt some chocolate, put it on top. That sounds like a better thing to me. I don't know. You talk about Dubai chocolate or like what are the - Pistachio flakes?

9:09Yeah, the pistachio, like the bird's nest. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what I'm talking about. Yeah, I get it. I get what you're saying. Cracker Barrel discourse. I think that came and went but that was the LinkedIn posts they went a little people need to comment here's the trend I'm seeing with the backies is discourse all the discourse was too much this year too much discourse perhaps part of the problem hand up we're part of the discourse we're right this episode the backie really is a discourse yeah it's shut up shut up stop talking about stop doing your fucking podcast about it yeah putting your thoughts into words into microphones yeah this is enough this is a big meta shut up to us yeah yeah yeah utah 2036 i'm sick of it i think it's a good logo i think it's i think it's a fine i think it's 2034 right or tomato tomato i couldn't remember if it was we didn't talk about it on the show we didn't because it's 2034 kevin you have it in the oh we didn't talk about the I don't have a color of the year either, which I guess I don't really like it.

10:17Yeah, we'll put it on the backy. Let's talk about 2034, Utah 2034. I'm here to put it in the backies because I think it's bad. I'm sorry, Kevin. Hand up. Wah, wah, wah. Listen, you know I love to be a contradictory guy. You know I like to be sort of devil's advocate in the LinkedIn comment section. Why is it bad? It's bad design. It doesn't look good. It's bad. That's subjective. You can just say that about anything. It's crafted poorly. It looks bad. It doesn't have much. It's going to not even be the main logo for the actual Olympics. It's not real. It's a placeholder. Well, they backed down because everyone got mad.

10:51It's bad, though. No, it's not. It's good. It looks like the rock formations. When the Utah Hockey Club or whatever had their interim branding, it was just very simple and nothing. Then they came in with the mammoth and the fucking great branding. This is what they're doing here. But the interim branding is the most funky, fucked up, bad design I've ever seen. It's bad. It's bad. It's good. It looks like the rock formations. No, it doesn't. You know what's in Utah? Rock formations. It's bad. It's bad design. It's good. It's good. It's good design. I get to roll with the masses here. It's very Utah.

11:17It's very, very Utah. Also, I'm so glad this is coming up on the backies because I love to – I'm a hater. I get to be finally a hater on the show. This is my excuses, my moment. It's bad design. 20 for 34 Utah logo. It's bad. I'm sorry. I don't know. No, it's good. I'm with the masses. I hate the discourse. I hate the whining designers on LinkedIn. It's bad design. It's bad design. It looks like every student portfolio that's ever been submitted to team at center.design. No disrespect to the students out there, but it just looks so trendy. And it's coming out in nine years, in 2034. Do you know how bad and outdated it will be then?

11:51It's outdated in 2025. Oh, my hater ass. Oh, my God. Hater ass. Dove Whole Body Dio came out this year. They had the song, My Neck, My Back. Yeah, that was bad. I can't remember the other words, but yeah, I'm not here for whole body Dio and I'm not here for that bastardization of that song. Yeah. Do you know what I'm also not here for? Sort of shortening down deodorant to Dio. Yeah. No. Absolutely not. When did we decide that that was a thing? No. No. Just say the whole word. Yeah. Dio? We're trying to make deodorant cool? Oh, yo, pass me that Dio. Yeah. I'm not a big fan. I don't like shortening words.

12:26And while we're on the subject of shortening words, there are a lot of people, a ton of people actually, that are calling Cincinnati Cincy. I'm not here for it. Oh, they've been calling Cincinnati Cincy for a long time. No, but I'm here for people calling it that sparingly. It's a cool fucking name. Say the whole name. Get it off the jerseys. Get Cincy off the jerseys. Oh, oh, oh. I think, yeah. Get Cincy off the jerseys. Yeah, get Cincy off the jerseys. Yeah, don't put like - Put it proper. Don't put shorthand slang names on jerseys. I think generally, right? Like, don't do that. Don't fucking.

13:01Absolutely not. We're talking about jerseys. Remember those hats? Remember the Tata's hats? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was great. That happened this year. Wow. This year. Wow. Crazy. Rats, they infested Erewhon. Yeah. Not shocked. Yeah, not shocked at all. But I think Erewhon is okay. But then they came to New York. That was the big story. Oh, Keith Ivy. For the launch of Keith Ivy, the members club. Yeah, you can now get a$35 smoothie delivered to your door. Thanks to Uber Eats and Keith Ivy. Thank you. Thank you, Ronnie. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We so deeply appreciate it. You know what's funny?

13:34In terms of not being a hater, my favorite thing to hate on is Keith. It just is the easiest punching bag. It is the worst. Everything that Ronnie does is just so easily hateable. But I will say, I do like the City Edition Knicks jerseys this year. They're cream. They look kind of cool. Oh, I need to check them out. Yeah, they have a Madison Square Garden motif. They look cool. That's sick. There's some parts of it that I don't love. This is like checkered pattern thing. Listen, I think Ronnie's gotten a lot of flowers over the years. Yeah. And rightly so. Oh. Visionary. He was ahead at the time.

14:05Yeah, no, we always say this. You know. But no, his, his, Keith Ivey is terrible. It comes, it comes from everyone. He also just opened up a restaurant that looks really bad. Oh, no. Called Ronnie's. Stay in your lane. In London. It's like a Mediterranean inspired New York bistro. Oh. It's like, no. What, did he just take the fucking idea from Kit Ivey? It's terrible, and the branding is really bad, too. So boo, all of that stuff. Sidney Sweeney's Jeans. That was this year. Yeah, that was a stupid campaign. It was dumb, and also the discourse was dumb. That's the thing. It's like, let Sidney Sweeney cook.

14:37Let her out. Yeah, I mean, it - Like, whatever. It's a bad idea. It was a bad contest. It's a bad idea, bad execution. They could have very easily avoided the outrage, which they didn't want to do. They intentionally wanted to get that outrage. Do you think that was intentional? That was inside? Yeah. I mean, if they had used her and then used a variety of other models and said whatever the fuck they said, the jeans thing. Who was it for? American Eagle? American Eagle. Wow. If they had used a diverse group of models, I think that would have been fire. But they didn't do that. They rolled with Sidney Sweeney.

15:09They wanted to get the people going. Okay. You think they knew that this was going to cause controversy and uproar? Uproar. Okay. Well, then get out of here. Yeah. We're not here. The backies. We're not here for intentional outrage. Fuck that. That's fair. That's totally fair. We're outraged by intentional outrage. That's true. Yeah, yeah. Get your intentional outrage out of here or we will be outraged. Drake's abs. That was this year. Yeah. I can't believe that that happened this year. The year of ab implants. Those were fake. Yeah. People are saying Big Sean's got fake abs, too. Wow. Although he's always had abs.

15:40So I think it's a tough call whether or not they're fake or not. Should I get fake abs again? Yeah. 100%. Yeah. I think you're right. Now get real abs, bro. Yeah, dude. I need to get lean. Holiday season's tough. 2026, the year of the cut. After my three martinis last night, I did wind up at Joe's. I had to get two slices. But you know what? That's fine. It's just two regular cheese slices. Yeah, you ran the marathon this year. They were kind of small, and they weren't. It was fine. It was a little bit of a late dinner. But you know what? Yeah, so those things happen. Holiday season, this is the time to go out there.

16:10Those are the stories. So those things happen this year. Those are the stories. Those are the backy stories of the year. Yeah, those things happen. Things that happened. I think we should put this list out. The fronties, things that happened, and backies things that happened. Yeah, sure. But, Kevin, we have to give out the awards. Brand of the year. Well, I don't think we had a brand of the year. Do you have a brand of the year real quick? So let's just skip it. Oh, I know what the bad brand of the year is. Backie brand of the year. Brand of the year. DraftKings. DraftKings? Yeah, for taking all our goddamn money, Kevin.

16:41Gambling is not cool anymore. Sports gambling was really cool, and then we lost all of our parlays. We can't win. And we can't win on this goddamn app. And so we're out of here. Get out of here. Brand of the year. Draft Kings. Yeah, fuck you. Yeah, fuck you. We're not fucking putting any more money into our account. Absolutely not. No. No more sports gambling. Yeah, not until the NFL playoffs start. Yeah, we got a couple weeks until we're going to put more money into that account. So watch Sunday football. All the ups and all the downs. Yeah, brand of the year. Back of the year. Draft Kings for sports gambling.

17:13Recession indicator of the year. Wow. We got DoorDash and Klarna, if you remember. Great story. DoorDash and Klarna rolled out that you can put your nachos on layaway now. Order a pizza, get some wings. Pay it in installments. Yeah, get some meatballs on the side, get a Caesar salad, add the chicken, get the extra bread, maybe get some gnocchi. Do it all and put it away on Klarna. Yeah, so now when your broke friend asks if they can get wings with the pizza, you say, nah, you get it. You put it on Klarna. Wow, crazy. That did happen this year. Are they still doing that? That's a still thing. Probably, yeah.

17:45You can put anything on layaway, which is not a good – I don't think that's a good thing for society. We shouldn't be door-dashing Uber Eats or Seamlessing and Corning at the same time. We can't. We can't be doing that. No, get it out of here. You got to pay for that stuff right now. Get it out of here. Okay. Stunt of the Year. The Bakke Award for Stunt of the Year goes to Duolingo. Duo is dead. So in a famous move, once perfected by Gary Vaynerchuk. Famous and cliche move. Yeah. They killed their mascot. They killed their mascot. Yeah, the famous Duolingo owl. Is that what he is? TikTok superstar.

18:19Great. I mean, great TikTok presence. I've enjoyed a lot of the content they make. They're really pushing the boundaries over there. But we found this to be very cliche. Performative and cliche. Yeah, we didn't really fuck with it. And there was some controversy around it. We don't want to get into that. Well, I don't even know what that is. We talked about it. We're not going to cover it again. But it was dead. And then to the power of engagement, they brought him back. And mascots are a hot trend this year. so stop killing your mascots just don't do that don't murder the mascots don't even make a mascot unless you have a good one duo's good but don't kill it you got a good mascot don't kill it Zuck of the Year goes to Mr.

19:01Beast Mr. Beast had a globe this year talking to the money talking on the phone so sorry Zuck of the Year goes to Mr. Beast for having a Zuck-like glow up in 2025. Absolutely. Where he got the mustache, he got the goatee, he got the chain. And he lost some weight too. He's been hitting the gym. He has been hitting the gym. You can tell. Shout out Mr. Beast. Shout out to Mr. Beast. You did get the worst Zuck of the year. Yeah, you're a bozo though, actually. All right, cool. Keep going. All right, so we got the QSR TikTok trend. And that's taking your pants off at a crumble cookie. Yeah. This year was marked by a handful of TikTok trends that happened at QSR restaurant chains or QSR food chains, whatever you'll call them.

19:45And this one was probably our least favorite. Fuck Crumble Cookie. Fuck Benson Boone. Fuck those super calorie ridden cookies. And just taking your pants off, even if you have pants on underneath them, add a Crumble Cookie is not very cool, not acceptable. Don't do it. So we'd like to admonish this. Not good. Very bad. Stop it. Yeah, don't try to create like a performative TikTok in-store trend. Yeah. And if you're going to do that, don't do it around Benson Boone's Moonbeam Ice Cream. Just, you know, I was saying that. Worst song of the year. Yeah. Like Glenn Powell had redeemed himself with his great job on SNL.

20:29Benson Boone's still down. Still hate that guy. No Grammy nominations. Was he on SNL? No, no. I'm just saying. He may have been, but I'm just saying like he did nothing redeeming. He stays on the backy list. Get him out of here. Absolutely not. Yeah. Rebrand of the year, Kevin. This one is really good. I really like it. Rebrand of the year goes to Rob McElhenney, who rebranded by changing his name to Rob Mack. Yes. In true Ryan Reynolds fashion. This has Ryan Reynolds written so all over. He is a Ryan Reynolds clone. We do not condone Ryan Reynolds. That's right. Bad creative. Weird looking face.

21:05Too much plastic surgery. Yeah. Please stop it. Don't take yourself this seriously. Horrible rebrand. Terrible, terrible. Worse than the Cracker Barrel rebrand. 100%. Not enough people are talking about this, and I'm glad that we're here to bring light to this. Yeah, we have to circle back on this. No, this is really good. This is why this show exists. This is why the back is an important part of culture, an important part of our world, because not enough people are talking about Rob McElhenney, who was once a beloved comedy guy. Very funny on It's Always Sunny. People liked him. And then he just hung out with Ryan Reynolds way too long.

21:41And now he's starting to look like Ryan Reynolds. He's turning into Ryan Reynolds. You hate to see it. And he rebranded to Rob Mac. And that is the cringiest, corniest, worst thing I've heard this year. We are not here for it. Truly, truly terrible. Especially his video where he took a minute or two to explain his thinking. Okay. And distanced himself from his family name. Mm-hmm. You know. Terrible. Coward. As a person with a last name that people often mispronounce. Beatery. Just take it. Also, Rob McElhinney, not that hard to say. No. I'm sorry. Just stick with it. Boo. Okay, next. The next one's good, too.

22:18Infidelity of the year. Wow, so many options. So many things to choose from. Yeah, this is a tough category. A lot of infidelity this year. Yeah, for sure. But nothing took the cake like Andy Byron and his colleague, Kristen Cabot, exposed at the Coldplay concert. A truly iconic story. When you look back at 2025 and you think about the year in culture, you think about the year in branding. This could be story of the year. This could have been story of the year. Andy Byron, truly, the look on his face still cracks me up. When Chris Martin from Goldplay accidentally put this guy on the Jumbotron and exposed him and his infidelity and truly one of the cornerstone moments of the year.

22:56um yeah it put his company astronomer on the map uh just a absolute brand uh just a sort of something only could happen in this these these trying times yeah was it was it was this uh was this rigged did they did they plan this to happen i don't know probably not i like to believe that i that this is real i want to believe that this truly happened and this was truly a moment in culture that wasn't premeditated or predetermined but it was real and it uh don't tell me if it's fake i don't i don't want to know because that was too fantastic okay next next we got fake out of the year wow which goes to uh the skims pierced nipple bra we're not going to really elaborate on here but uh yeah kim kardashian she actually rolled out a a complimentary product as well i'm sure you saw with the thongs with the sort of uh the hair the hair oh yeah we did we didn't talk about we didn't really talk about this we talked about the nipple bra but we didn't Fake out of the year, Skims.

23:52Skims, yeah. Skims. Pierce Nipple Bra and the Merkin Panties. Yeah, I want to say they may have won a frontie in years past for one of the best brands. They are still one of the best brands. Yeah, no, they're a fire brand. We love Skims. And I went to a Skims store recently in Manhattan in a beautiful store, really great. But they are out here creating fake products. Yeah, fake out of the year. Yeah, so there it is. Yeah, Skims and Kim, sorry, but you got a backy. Yeah, what's the next backy? next backy is back it backy wow and this is a positive one wow wow what do you got and it goes to Nelly and Bubbly for their work with bubbly apple bottom jeans yeah how did they wind up here on the backy I don't know it's a butt so we figured it only fits oh I get it now it fits in the back but this is actually a front the backy because it's a back product for the back side yeah butt okay I get it now Kevin pretty high concept it all makes sense thank you thank you for your service.