Moment of Silence: These 15 Aussies Took an L in 2015

When so many achieved so much in 2015, it's sometimes hard to remember all those lost souls who have taken losses. For every person emerging from a boutique with a pair of Yeezy Boosts, we seem to forget about the many poor people out there going home empty handed.

In the year of DJ Khaled's relentless optimism and advice to never take an L or play yourself became the stuff of legend, let's share a moment of silence for all those poor Australians who did in fact play themselves in 2015. Bow your head in quiet reflection for 15 of the biggest L's in 2015.

"Never rat on your friends, and keep your mouth shut" – Jimmy Conway, Goodfellas.

Sports stars fall out of favour with the public on an almost weekly basis, that's a given, but Karmichael Hunt was special in 2015. Charged with possessing and supplying cocaine, Hunt suddenly faced losing a two million-dollar deal at Rugby's Queensland Reds. Rather than drop two mill of his own, Hunt instead dropped a dime on his former teammates, implicating 12 Gold Coast Suns players in a cocaine ring. After his (rumoured) three million dollar Suns contract netted six goals in 44 games, the shameless snitching was basically Hunt burning the bridge and pissing on the ashes. –Steve Duck

While Meredith Music Festival may be well known as a haven for the country’s favourite indie artists, Andrew Levins, also known as DJ Levins, just doesn’t particularly give a shit about that. In a move that required a significant amount of testicular fortitude, he decided to play one of the most popular songs from one of the most popular artists of our generation – Justin Bieber’s ‘Sorry’ – during his DJ set at the bohemian festival.

While video documenting the momentous occasion shows the majority of the crowd actually singing along to the tune, before Levins exclaims “fuck every person here who doesn’t love Bieber!”, the typical rabble took to Instagram to express their extreme disapproval. Some dubbed it “the worst moment in Meredith history” and another posted the following:

This user, not realising he was in fact the dickhead all along, was trolled by hundreds of people, all responding to his original comment with “who cares”. Meanwhile, Levins has further proven he still simply does not give a shit:

Since his extravagant (and completely reckless) wedding in August this year, NSW councilor Salim Mehajer simply can’t stay out of the headlines. From an out-of-court settlement for running over old ladies in his Ferrari, allegations of intimidation and corruption, launching a bid to buy Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs NRL team to even declaring he wants to run for Prime Minister (via A Current Affair, while standing behind a lectern), Mehajer is never far from controversy. Being in a position of political and financial influence is probably the dream for many, but what is all that suffering for success worth when your new bride has, via cosmetic surgery and deed poll, basically become your sister? Congratulations, you just played yourself. –Andrew Nguyen

This is harsh, I know. I legitimately feel bad for the guy. But also, this was 100% a loss for Ben Ross.

Losing an arm wrestle is an embarrassing thing to suffer through. Even if there's only one person watching, you've still taken a big L. Losing an arm wrestle on TV? Far worse. Losing an arm wrestle and having your arm broken in three places? That is the kind of L you might never recover from. But hey, Ben Ross played three seasons of rugby league after breaking his neck in 2009, so he'll probably recover from this one too. –Steve Duck

Two years ago festival promoter AJ Maddah was at the top of his game, having been named the Australian music industry’s most powerful player for his work with Soundwave and Harvest. Later also buying his way into Big Day Out, everything seemed to be coming up Maddah. Then BDO went belly up, and he had to transfer his stake to a U.S. company – since then, there hasn't been any movement on the iconic rock festival at all. Fast forward to 2015, and Maddah has been forced to announce that his signature festival, Soundwave would also see its 2016 iteration canceled only a month before the event. With the ticket sales agent and Maddah pointing the figure at each other in terms of who’s going to front up for ticket refunds, and exorbitant debts still being owed to the 2015 acts, things are looking very dim. On the bright side, the bloke may be completely in the hole, but at least fedoras are still cool to wear in 2015. –Dan Pardalis

After 2014 saw NSW take out their first Origin series in 9 long years, the stage was set for a new era in Origin. Queensland were too old, and the young legs of NSW were going to trample the likes of Corey Parker and Justin Hodges. After a 52-6 game three thumping though, the Blues are back to Laurie’s drawing board, and the question remains – when will NSW ever string two series wins together? When Queensland's dominant halves duo Thurston and Cronk finally retire, Anthony Milford and Ben Hunt will step right in to the 6 and 7 jerseys, while the Cockroaches will likely still be experimenting with halves combinations. Someone get Jarryd Hayne back here ASAP. –Steve Duck

In a case of the exact opposite situation occurring, Tyler The Creator, who was set to tour in September, first announced to his fans that he had been banned from the country when he actually hadn’t been at all. Weeks later, he randomly decided to ban himself instead, by cancelling the Australian leg of the tour and making the following statement:

Tyler blamed everything on activist group Collective Shout, and named Coralie Alison specifically, who had been heading the campaign against the rapper due to some of his early lyrics which they thought glorified violence against women. Of course, a certain sub-set of Tyler fans decided to take their rage out on Alison, by bombarding her with messages about mutilating, raping and murdering her. Not feeding into exactly what they expected of you at all there, guys. –Dan Pardalis

You’ve gotta hand it to the casting team at Channel 10. I’ve never watched an episode of The Bachelor/Bachelorette, but enough wild shit happens on these shows that I’m familiar with key events from every season. In 2015, ‘international model’ David Witko took a brilliant loss, needing only two episodes to turn the entire country against him. Appearing on camera as a self-obsessed weirdo, claiming he "didn't choose to be a model" and figuring the only way Bachelorette Sam Frost wasn't interested in him was because she was some sort of materialistic monster should have been enough, but some dudes just can't take the L and move on. After being eliminated, Yung Witko went out in a blaze of glory, telling Frost he was psyched to be out before taking that lonely cab ride home.

It still wasn't enough though, as Witko followed up the embarrassment with this weird "comedy" video referencing the whole ordeal. Let it go dogg, it's over. –Steve Duck

With the entire world watching in disbelief as Donald Trump keeps winning popular support on the back of an anti-immigration policy, let us not forget that Australian governments haven’t had the best year either. On a late spring day, the Federal Government announced that the Australian Border Force would begin “random Visa checks” on unsuspecting people in the Melbourne CBD. After a collective moment of stunned amazement at the announcement of authorised racial profiling, the protest-loving Melbourne public took quickly to social media to mobilise against the ABF, trapping the newly founded unit within the famous Flinders St Station. Thankfully, Operation Fortitude was cancelled before any permanent damage was done, but this event only serves to remind the Australian public that we aren’t immune to moments of madness from our government. Stay Woke Australia. –Andrew Nguyen

When you’ve got a group of adoring fans who have been completely willing to forgive you for your indiscretions, what’s another one to add to the list? Despite endless obstacles, Breezy really made his fans think he was going to come through. Standing up against not only GetUp!’s petition for him to be banned, and official notification from the then newly-instated Turnbull Government of their intent to refuse him a visa, Brown still kept his fans hopeful.

Reportedly, he’d hired a team of Australian lawyers to get on the case, and attempted to bargain with the government saying that he’d become a spokesperson against domestic violence – but naturally no one was buying it. Tickets still went on sale in September, but it wasn’t until December that his One Hell Of A Nite tour was officially cancelled, only weeks before it was set to take place. There's just nothing like an L four whole months in the making. –Dan Pardalis

2015 seemed to be Tony Abbott’s year. He managed to slide in a “captain’s call” and get old mate Prince Philip a knighthood, even causing his biggest fan Andrew Bolt to describe the act as “pathetically stupid”. He got to drop some references to Nazis, the holocaust and Dr Goebbels on separate occasions. He became a viral sensation when he was caught heroically devouring an onion completely raw. He ran a platform around completely denying climate change, with even the Pope making a request that he reconsider his backwards ideas on the phenomenon. All this, and he still got pushed out of the top spot by that snake Malcolm Turnbull? If we’d only been able to turn back a few more boats this wouldn’t have happened, right Tones? –Dan Pardalis