#whamageddon

[esperanta-dragon]

My last pins of this season.

Copper is Rickrolling pin (great for trolling during the whole year) Gold one is Whamageddon pin (if you want to make people more miserable during December) Scanning them works perfectly!

[o-the-mts]

[jewish-culture-is]

jew-in-progress culture is getting sooooooooooo fucking fed up by xmas at a magnitude you never thought possible >_<

yeah it's... a lot

[ideeperscrittori]

LA MIA SFIDA

Da alcuni anni, nel mese di dicembre, si svolge una curiosa sfida planetaria, detta Whamageddon.

La regola è semplice: le persone che partecipano cercano di evitare in ogni modo "Last Christmas" degli Wham.

Sembra facile, ma la canzone spunta dappertutto.

Quando credi di essere al sicuro, ecco che entri in un bar dove c'è un televisore acceso e ti rendi conto che il gioco è terminato. Hai perso. Se ne riparla l'anno prossimo.

Io non gioco perché sto affrontando una sfida ancora più difficile: evitare di sentire la frase «Io sto con il gioielliere».

L'unico sistema efficace mi sembra questo: fare scorta di cibo e rinchiudersi in casa.

FINE

[L'Ideota]

[desperatelyseekingcannibals]

Me trying to get around the shop real quick now they're playing Christmas music so I don't lose Whamageddon:

[redd-byrd]

Happy Whamageddon, fuckers

[james-p-sullivan]

ITS WHAMAGEDDON TIME

With December fast approaching, it’s time for us all to come together to play our favourite holiday game, Whamageddon. How do you play Whamageddon you ask? Good question!

The game starts as soon as the clock strikes midnight on December 1st and ends at 11:59:59 on December 24th and the rules of the game are simple: you must go the entirety of December leading up to Christmas without hearing the song Last Christmas by Wham. This includes playlists, hearing it on the radio, commercials, your neighbour who likes to play their music too loud, etc. As soon as you hear those first notes, you’re out of the game.

Now Sulley, you might be asking, what do you win if you make it to Christmas without hearing it? Well, little Timmy, the answer is easy. Absolutely nothing except for some really weird and specific bragging rights.

NOW GO OUT THERE AND FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT! And don’t forget to post #whamageddon if you lose before the time is up ;)

[moonchild-in-blue]

Went to the mall and thought I had already lost. Thankfully it only starts December 1st 😌

[ponds-of-ink]

Welp, it’s one more sleep ‘til Pre-December Whamageddon for me. Wish me luck, I guess, because I might have three songs to avoid for this round.

[beefpaper06]

damn i miss WHAM and whamming those were the good times (they split up 20 years before i was born)

[zoestorm]

WARNING! WARNING!

WATCH OUT!

>>> THIS LINK <<< leads to the music video for Wham!'s magnum opus Last Christmas, so don't click it if you don't want to lose Whamageddon!

You have been warned!

[weaversweek]

26 "Last Christmas" - Wham!

writer George Michael

"It doesn't matter that the speaker misread the relationship. What matters is that we, the audience, can identify with him. And perhaps in that way, we truly learn the meaning of Christmas."

Part of the UncoolTwo50 project, marking the best singles from 1977-99.

Written one afternoon in 1984, "Last Christmas" is a simple tale of love, rejection, and regret.

Last year, George met someone. They were looking for sympathy, company, perhaps a no-strings-attached shag. George wanted there to be strings, he thought there was more emotional connection than was reciprocated. And when it came, the rejection really, really stung.

For a year, George has been licking his wounds, building up this brief fling into something bigger than it really was. Hyperbole is his weapon, ideas like "your soul of ice", "you tore me apart" abound in the verses; perhaps "the very next day, you gave it away" is a similar misremembering.

And now, he's not entirely surprised to find his erstwhile paramour doesn't recognise him. George remembers, because it meant something to him; the other partner does not, because it was a one-and-done screw. However much it hurts, George has also moved on, and found someone else more worthy of his "heart".

We have to pause and consider, is there something George wasn't telling us? Note how George never declares any gender for his paramour. Lines like "a man under cover" and "you tore him apart" take on a very different meaning now that we know George was gay, and the heteronormative reading we all assumed in 1984 is almost certainly wrong.

We could interpret "Last Christmas" as a coded argument between gay men, one is prepared to acknowledge their relationship in public, the other is not. Or one wants to settle down, the other wants to screw around. Or one cannot understand why the other remains in the closet.

Whatever the meaning, "Last Christmas" is a festive record through and through. George personally supervised every note, each sleighbell, the production and the vocals - this record is George Michael from conception to wise men. The Life of a Song column noted,

"Shiny round synth baubles bounce up and down the octave as the tune takes tinsel twists around the torn-up vocal. It's a brilliant sonic evocation of how it feels to be isolated from the seasonal cheer, mustering smiles for department cashiers in elf hats before hurrying home to sob into the egg nog."

The Atlantic set the song in its greater cultural milieu:

"Christmas is also one of the few yearly rituals that the bulk of Western society still partakes in. Which means that most everyone has a memory of their Last Christmas, and everyone has aspirations for This Year (when we take measures, in vain, to be Saved From Tears). Wham! is tapping into the holiday’s unique ability to make people take stock and look ahead. "The band is also tapping into the fact that, contrary to the notion of seasonal cheer, many holiday memories are negative—tinted by sadness, loss, or anger, depending on how that year ended for you. It’s probably the bitterest Christmas tune we’ve got, and to say its bitterness keeps it from being a Christmas tune denies the nature of the holiday itself."

George recorded "Last Christmas" by himself, but the video included Andrew and Pepsi and Shirlie, model Kathy Hill, Shirlie's boyfriend Martin Kemp, and some friends. The video was filmed at Saas-Fee in Switzerland just a few weeks before the song was released; that's real November 1984 snow. The director made sure that the wine glasses contained real alcohol, and most of the cast got roaringly drunk.

An instant classic, it sold 840,000 copies by the end of 1984, a further 355,000 in 1985, and trickle-sold each Christmas. Kept off the number one spot in 1984 by Band Aid, eventually becoming the Top of the Pops Christmas number one in 2023.

It's been covered by almost everyone, in almost every style - Last-Christmas.com recognised over 200 cover versions by 2008, Second Hand Songs listed 541 versions earlier this month. George Michael never saw a penny of the royalties; he signed over the composer's rights, and his share of the performance rights, to the Band Aid trust. Spotify only pays a farthing for each stream; those farthings add up and do something good for the world.

"Last Christmas" has become so pervasive that there's an organised attempt to not hear the song during December. Whamageddon originated circa 2008, and has spawned similar efforts to avoid "Fairytale of New York" (qv) and "All I want for Christmas is you". Although I'm too polite to spoil other people's sport, I'm really not a fan of Whamageddon; it smacks of being performatively cool, has faint overtones of homophobia, and surely the point of great music is that one enjoys it. My friend Dan has the right idea: play "Last Christmas" every day during December.

Under the rules of UncoolTwo50, "Last Christmas" is aggregated with its double-A companion "Everything she wants". Having written 800 words on the other side, time does not permit me to discuss this Gramscian deconstruction of the Thatcherite settlement presented through the lens of a relationship.

Other Christmas number ones under consideration: "Always on my mind" (1987) made the 100-song shortlist, as did "Do they know it's Christmas" (1984). The 500-song longlist featured "Killing in the name" (2009), "Stay another day" (1994), and the 1986 Network Chart winner "Caravan of love". And this is the closest Spandau Ballet get to my fifty; "Gold" and "True" were both considered for the longlist.

[bunnymoonss]

Rotting in bed core

[threegoblinart]

WHAMaggedon Roulette

My husband and I have made a game. One playlist, over 1000 Christmas songs, one "Last Christmas". How long can you go before you lose WHAMaggedon?

Go to Spotify and put it on Shuffle and see how long it takes!

[liberoquorion]

i have been banned from playing last christmas by wham! from december 1st…

[recursive360]

WHAM!