From flying dollar bills to crazy ghost, and even that manically grinning poop, the year in tech news ran the whole gamut of emoji-dom. Probably most applicable to the events of 2014, however, is the shocked and/or nervous face. This year marked a turning point in the coming together of technology and pop culture. It was a collision at times inspiring – as in the united front of Hong Kong’s student demonstrators – and at other times downright depressing: see the hold that 4Chan’s more unsavoury users have had over the media this year. Whatever the device, and whatever the network, the year’s most shocking moments have been driven by or reflected in our technologies: here’s our rundown of how WTF and WWW came together in 2014.

#CELEBGATE

In a year of “Gates” that saw both the most acutely sexist (see: #Gamergate) and silliest (see: #Beardgate) of our communal technological consciousness on display, #Celebgate has to take the crown for 2014’s most shocking. A turning point in the public’s perception of how private our information really is, 31 August saw the beginning of what would amount to the leaking of almost 500 private pictures of predominantly female celebrities. Many of these nude photos were posted on 4chan and later spread through Tumblr and Reddit users. The bad guys in this story – other than disrespectful dudes of the interwebs – were undoubtedly Apple, who acknowledged the attack from hackers but nevertheless denied any specific vulnerability in the iCloud service. The good guys, in the end, were probably the starlets themselves, as Jennifer Lawrence, Kirsten Dunst and Kate Upton refused to bow down to harassment online.

GET YOUR WATCH (BACK) ON

Vince Vaughn/Owen Wilson vehicle The Internship was basically dated from the time it went on general release, but its opening scene seems particularly “sooo 2013”. In it, the hapless pair have to face the facts: nobody wants to wear watches anymore, because they can just tell the time on their goddamn “mo-bill.” Not so, in 2014 – with all of tech’s big players releasing news of a Smart Watch this year, the tech world’s pleasure point has once again shifted to the humble wrist. The big reveal of the year was obviously the fashion-first Apple Watch, but other pretenders to the crown include the Moto 360 and Samsung Gear 2.

TERRORIST TECH

One development that came to the forefront of news coverage this year was the use of social media by terrorist organisations in order to recruit, radicalise and raise funds. ISIS, for one, has embraced the web – they clocked up almost 40,000 tweets in one day as they marched into the Northern Iraqi city of Mosul. Whilst an Internet presence for such organisations is nothing new – Al Qaeda’s had a web presence for nearly two decades – the sophisticated marketing of hashtag usage and daily uploaded videos was a scary new force in 2014.

APPLE AND FACEBOOK GO SHOPPING

It looks like Christmas came early for our technological overlords this year – that is, if their big dollar purchases are anything to go by. That Apple and Facebook dig deep to acquire competitor companies is nothing new, but the nature of what was snapped up this year was pretty unprecedented in price point and genre. In March, Facebook acquired Virtual Reality Gaming Startup Oculus Rift for $2 billion; by May, Apple had bet on Beats for a cool $3 billion. The purchases were a sign of the times, as each company tries to harness the commercial clout that streaming services and gaming have for a younger generation who’ve never bought anything on iTunes.

SONY HACK

Closing out the year with a scandal to rival #Celebgate, the Sony email hacking scandal continues apace. The servers were breached on November 24th, and every day since then freshly embarrassing information has been released from the private email exchanges between company bigwigs and Hollywood stars. Amidst mounting evidence that the North Korean group “Guardians of Peace” did it as revenge for The Interview (and it looks like the revenge isn’t stopping there – and just this morning the release was pulled altogether) the revelations are coming in thick and fast: that Leonardo Dicaprio’s behaviour is ‘despicable’, Angelina Jolie is a ‘minimally talented spoiled brat’ – plus, an all-capitals email from Channing Tatum that is actually just quite jokes.

#COMETLANDING BEATS #BREAKTHEINTERNET

Proving that even a good old-fashioned Space Race can get us excited in the 21st century, the landing of Philae – the Rosetta satellite’s landing probe – on a four-billion-year-old comet had the internet singing in appreciation in November. What’s more, the comet even sung back. Most shocking of all might have been the fact that the #CometLanding beat the hashtag dedicated to Kim Kardashian’s behind on the cover of Paper magazine – leaving space enthusiasts everywhere feeling #blessed.

BITCOIN’S INVENTOR IS OUTED – OR NOT

At the heart of the original crypto-currency lies an unsolved mystery: just who is Satoshi Nakamoto, its elusive inventor? Up until last March, popular culture had only thrown up such inspiring answers as, erm, Jason Biggs in The Good Wife. In a Newsweek cover story, Satoshi Nakamoto was tracked down in Los Angeles as an extremely private 64-year old man. Stating that he was “no longer involved”, the media furore was followed by a post on P2P Foundation forums from the same account that announced Bitcoin five years previously: reading, simply, “I am not Dorian Nakamoto.” And so the mystery continues.

THE GLASS BACKLASH GOT PHYSICAL

Google Glass was undoubtedly the year’s most talked about technology. Louder than the whisperings of a fashion crowd that simply doesn’t like the clunky look of Glass, however, were the straight-up physical assaults that early adopters of the technology fell victim to through the year. Known, affectionately, as Glassholes, early Glass users in the San Francisco area have reported verbal and physical abuse for wearing their devices in public. Perhaps that’s what led Google founder Sergey Brin to “accidentally” leave his in the car at an event last November – another signal being widely seen as a death knoll for the tech that begat more think pieces than it did purchases.

ELLO! MADE A SPLASH

Like a fifth teletubby that’s been keeping a low profile, the world was told to “Say, El-lo!” to a new social network in September. Flipping the finger to Facebook’s mining of user data, Ello promised a totally ad-free experience. It is, however – in a somewhat maddening twist – invite-only. The buzz may have died down, but those creepily eyeless smiling faces are still waiting for you to join, and the company’s been quietly accruing investment in the meantime.

THE YEAR IN OBITS

Such a stonking year of newness has to bring with it its inevitable funeral or two. Like an ongoing Oscars In Memoriam montage, the year’s seen some big names pass to the other side. MSN Messenger, somewhat inactive since that heady period when you thought having your boyfriend’s name in hearts in your screen name was de rigour, finally rode into the sunset on 31 October. Announced that same month, the discontinuance of the beloved iPod Classic has seen demand grow with models fetching up to $1000 on eBay. Meanwhile, it’s chaos over at Blackberry HQ: dropping their CEO amidst the collapse of plans to sell at $4.7bn, the company might well be praying for a similar upsurge of nostalgia for swapping BBM pins.