It’s become a cliché by now (and not always a true one at that) to complain that the internet only shows us the highlight reel of other people’s lives. Never is this clearer than we are ushering in the new year, as social media abounds with happy photo dumps and self-congratulatory personal achievement threads. 

These posts make it easy to forget that we can’t get the highs without a few lows. It’s not always easy to admit it, but at least some of them can be turned into a funny story further down the line. 

This was the premise of an entertaining Twitter thread, in which people were asked to share the funniest and stupidest things that they had done during 2023. Not all of these were failures, but they still act as a reminder that our major life milestones aren’t the only things that define us. Arguably, the dumb stuff is even more telling.