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The 2025 Peely Awards for the Worst in Pop Culture, Round II Part I

Okay, folks! It’s time for Round II of the Peely Awards, the Avocado’s premiere institution for making fun of the worst in the year’s art and entertainment. I’m Wolfman Jew, host premiere for this event! In our last round, over seventy categories were suggested by you, the people of the Avocado. I and my co-host Lily-Bones, a creative and editorial whetstone who sharpens the Peely’s to an impossible edge, have whittled these into a setlist of forty.

Previous years have shown us that people love having a lot of categories, but that a lot of categories can make for a lot of technical issues. Therefore, we divide them into two threads, which still have technical issues but in a far more manageable way. Here are the first twenty; the next will be in Part II, which publishes an hour after this (and the link to it’s right here!).

  • The Miles MacKenzie Memorial Award for Worst New Character (Wolfman Jew)
  • The Adam Levine Award for Worst Lyric in a Piece of 2025 Music (Katie)
  • The Adam Levine: ACTOR Award for Worst Non-Lyrical Line of Dialogue in a 2025 Work (Wolfman Jew)
  • The JK Rowling Award for Worst Egregious Celebrity Behavior or Milkshake Ducking (Glinda the Wicked, Pachylad)
  • The “We Should All Know Less About Each Other” Award for Most Egregious Oversharing (NEPH//QUINLEY//THORNE)
  • The First Night 2013 with Jamie Kennedy Award for Most Hypnotically Unwatchable Trainwreck that Aired Live (Eagle Hand Laundry)
  • Most Egregious Corporate Malfeasance (Lily-Bones)
  • The Self-Catapulting Investors Award for Worst Corporate Self Destruction (Lily-Bones)
  • Most Ridiculous Publicity Stunt in an Era of Astonishingly Many Ridiculous Publicity Stunts (Lily-Bones)
    • NOTE: for the sake of the award being fun to nominate, tally, and especially read, we will be instituting a rule that the Trump White House only gets to have one token nomination.
  • Most Egregious Attempt At Manufacturing Consent (LibraryLass)
  • Fuck It, Let’s Go Five Blades: The Award for Most Disappointing New Product Iteration (Shit-Master Sløtface)
  • Boo, I’m Through with Limu Emu Award for Worst or Most Deeply Annoying Commercial, Trailer, Poster, or Basic Piece of Marketing for a Product or Piece of Art (Glinda the Wicked, Tigercat919)
  • Screw You, Algorithm Award for the Most Offensive and Insulting Ad Recommendations You Received in 2025 (SadClown)
  • The “At Least Deus Ex Had Rad Fashion” Award for Most Persistent Reminder that We’re Suffering under Late Capitalism and There’s No Escape (Merve)
  • Most Craven Company to Sell Out Employees for AI-Generated Slop, and the Most Mealy-Mouthed Excuse for Doubling Down (uh, clem, Shit-Master Sløtface)
  • Most Obnoxious Defense or Most Egregious Attempt at Getting You To Use AI (Wolfman Jew, Shit-Master Sløtface)
  • Most Bone-Headed the Worst UI Change to an Existing App, Site, Game, or Other Piece of Software that Didn’t Involve Generative AI (Girard)
  • Fuck You, Limbaugh, Ya Still Dead Award for Most Infuriating Example of the Existence of Actual, Far Right-Driven and Far Right-Approved Cancel Culture After Decades of Conservatives Controlling Politics Through the Nonexistent Threat of Anti-Conservative Political Correctness. (Wolfman Jew, Tigercat919)
  • The HBO Max(imum) Revolving Door Award for Worst Rebranding (Shit-Master Sløtface)
  • Worst Non-Gambling/Sports Betting Aspect of Sports, From the Most Ill-Advised Sports Trade to the Most Disingenuous Sportswashing to the Most Disreputable Behavior: Presented by Bet365 Sportsbook! Enter the Promo Code “garbageape” for a Special Bonus (Tigercat919, comradequestion)

Here’s the skinny on this. I’ve got a top-level comment for all of these categories (if you see this before they’ve been written, please abstain from writing anything until they’re all up), and it’s up to you to put forth and vote for nominees. Note that this is not a multiple choice test. We expect, nay, outright encourage you to vote for as many nominees as there are. Vote for everyone in a single category! This is about as unscientific of a process as you can find, and we’re damn proud of that!

And, as always, be nice! See you in the voting! The finalists will be unveiled on Friday, January 2nd.