Marvel, crypto, Tucker Carlson: eight of 2023’s most spectacular downfalls

Experts on tech, politics and culture weigh in on the year the hype faded and what could come next

Remember 2022? Elon Musk had just been named Time's Person of The Year, Marvel still ruled the box office, Tucker Carlson was the most-watched host on cable news and it seemed as if all of life was going to take place on the blockchain (the Staples Center in LA had been rechristened the Crypto.com arena, and Yuga Labs, the company behind Bored Ape Yacht Club, was valued at $4bn).

What a difference a year makes: 2023 has seen the crash of digital currency, the flatlining of NFTs, and the floundering of blockbuster franchises. Previously beloved musicians took on a more sinister edge, a celebrated social network imploded, and a TV show became the biggest faceplant" in a network's five-decade history. Below, experts from the worlds of tech, politics, and the arts give the inside track on the sacred cows that have been put out to pasture, the buzzy upstarts that faced a reckoning, and the lessons that can be learned for the future.