The year in quitters

It was either 17th century French maxim auteur François de la Rochefoucauld or my mom who once said: “Quitters never win.” But is that always true? One could argue that quitters often do win—just look at what happened to many of the people who quit something in the past 12 months.

But why bother with that debate? Sounds pretty boring tbh. Let’s just move on to the listicle: Here are 13 of the most notable quitters of 2015.

1. Rihanna quit designing socks or whatever to release some new solo music. But #whereisANTI.

2. Noted tall person Kobe Bryant announced his intentions to quit playing basketball in November.

3. Iggy Azalea ~~was forced off of Instagram by her management~~ decided to quit Instagram of her own volition in early March.

4. The only member of One Direction who ever mattered quit One Direction on March 25.

5. Sentient strawwoman Rachel Dolezal resigned as president of the NAACP’s Spokane, Washington, chapter when it was discovered that she had been lying about being black.

6. Gawker Media Executive Editor Tommy Craggs and Gawker Editor-in-Chief Max Read quit after a controversial post outing a Condé Nast executive as enlisting the services of a gay escort was removed from the site against vehement opposition from editorial staff.

7. Speaker of the House John Boehner resigned from Congress at the end of October.

8. Lots of other politicians quit the 2016 presidential primaries, too, like Lincoln Chafee, Mark Everson (????), Bobby Jindal, Lawrence Lessig, Rick Perry, Scott Walker, and Jim Webb—slash maybe not Jim Webb. [Ed. note: And Lindsay Graham!]

9. FIFA President Sepp Blatter (whose name looks like it could be an anagram for Patti LaBelle but actually is not!!!) quit, un-quit, and then was banned from the world of professional soccer.

10. Grown-ups quit pretending that they don’t like Justin Bieber’s music. (Biebs scored his first Billboard Hot 100 no. 1—”What Do You Mean?”—in August.)

11. Australian model Essena O’Neill quit social media in November, calling the brand-funded lifestyle she presented on Instagram and YouTube “fake” and “edited.” She made a lot of interesting points about the shadowy world of social media sponsorships, but most people quit reading after “Instagram Model Calls Social Media ‘Fake.'”

12. Much of the world quit pretending that the ongoing global refugee crisis wasn’t happening.

13. And Olivia finally quit Fitz. I hope.*

* Scandal airs on ABC, which is a parent company of Fusion. Nobody made me include Scandal on this list. I just like the show. [Ed. note: I am straight-up OVER Fitz and his DRAMA. Bye.]