Kelsey Fogarty's 5 favorite things of 2024

It’s over for everyone when I’ve found a new fixation — which is somewhat unfortunate for the people around me. The thing is, when I’m obsessed with something, I quite literally cannot shut up about it — just ask me about The Wild Robot or the How to Train your Dragon live-action trailer. This year, I’ve had a chance to test out a couple of amazing products, like a great pair of Skull Candy wireless buds and the brand-new Kindle Paperwhite. Luckily, my fantastic editor-in-chief gave me permission for this particularly unique brain dump.

2024 has been an incredible year of growth and discoveries, the most important of which being my wonderful team and role here at Pocket-lint, as well as the site itself. I won’t get all mushy before diving in, so here are all the new hills I’ve decided to die on in 2024 — as this wonderful year comes to a close, let’s see if I can convince you to join me on any of them.

1 Arcane

Riot Games, I am on my hands and knees begging for more

Netflix

The League of Legends TV show by Riot Games and Netflix was a hill I hesitated to climb for years. Back when season one released in 2021, the first episode just didn’t sink its claws into me. Looking back, it was the biggest blessing in disguise — I think I might’ve spontaneously combusted if I had to wait three years after that season one cliffhanger.

I’m no stranger to animated shows, but I’m definitely shyer getting into them. However, my social media algorithms know me a heck of a lot better than I know myself apparently, and my Instagram Reels were suddenly flooded with fan edits and soundtracks that were too intriguing to ignore. After a few months of enjoying the visuals, I knew every single character’s name, the bare bones of their backstories and allegiances, and a rough idea of who died and when. I thought I had gotten too many spoilers to watch.

Boy was I wrong, and glad for it.

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When a family member (whose media taste I worship) told me it was the best show she’d ever seen, I finally gave it a second chance. That second chance turned into three nights of sleep lost, and a lot more thoughts dedicated to picking out Easter eggs. I know the actual League of Legends gameplay pales in comparison, but Riot Games is this close to making me build my own gaming PC just to learn a little more about Runeterra.

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Arcane

Amid the stark discord of twin cities Piltover and Zaun, two sisters fight on rival sides of a war between magic technologies and clashing convictions.

2 New health gadgetry

Dry brushes and red lights and acupuncture — oh my!

BonCharge / Shakti Mats / Pocket-lint

If you scrolled through my iMessage, you’d think my real day job was being a health coach. There’s a consistent slew of “how do I put on muscle,” “what’s so bad about seed oils,” and “what are your thoughts on black coffee before breakfast” kinds of questions in my inbox at all times.

Sure, a girl can have side-hustle aspirations. But in the meantime, I just so happen to be a walking encyclopedia of herbal, nutritional, and general holistic health knowledge. If there’s ever a way to maximize my health, I’m all over it.

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Three health gadgets have really changed the game for me in 2024. In order of discovery, I have acquired a dry brush for lymphatic drainage, a near infrared light for my circadian rhythm, heavy duty blue-light blocking glasses, and an acupuncture mat. The former two are incredibly relaxing and bring the spa into my apartment, but the latter is quite literally the equivalent of laying on a bed of nails — but, I’m learning to love it. After braving the needle-point spikes for only five minutes, that particular night’s sleep could rival the Sleepytime Tea Bear’s.

3 Mt. Joy

I guess I’ll have to fall in love with Strangers?

Sure, I’ve always had a special place in my heart for this band, but a September trip to NYC this year changed everything. I’m the clueless kind of fan who runs into famous people at the bar and does not recognize a single one of them, and that’s exactly what happened.

Two friends and I traveled up to the city to see Mt. Joy at a sold-out Madison Square Garden, and one of them got some not-so-secret intel that their team was having an event in a borough I’d never heard of where they were selling the concert merch a day early. Naturally, after a day exploring the Highline, we sauntered on down to the nearly empty bar and bought a few hats and t-shirts. We absolutely hit it off with the people working the event, and suddenly, the band themselves walked in. Like I said, I thought they were randoms there to buy merch, not walking in to represent said merch.

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Talk about normal, because we said our hellos and chit-chatted for just a few minutes before going on our merry way to a dinner in SoHo. They were absolutely wonderful people (who I almost asked if they were going to the concert the next day), and looking down at their performance from our nosebleeds basically turned the Silver Linings encore into gold. Plus, Strangers live might’ve actually changed my life.

4 Cast iron cookware

An enemies-to-friends slow-burn love affair

This goes hand-in-hand with the health and wellness freak in me, but it just so happened that I moved into a new apartment this year and had absolutely no pans of my own to bring besides a very sub-par saucepan with a handle hot to the touch on a freezing fall day. It only took a few Google searches along the lines of “non-toxic non-stick pans affordable” for me to burst out laughing, slam my laptop shut, and try not to think about it until the next time I got hungry just to do it all over again.

It’s a hard-knock life for a twenty-something girl looking for something cheap that also won’t come with a “you might be entitled to financial compensation” commercial ten years from now. That’s how I came face-to-face with my first Lodge cast iron pan.

The 10-inch pan won the staring contest for about three weeks. It sat on my stove daring me to use it – daring me to test its seasoning (whatever that was) and not absolutely wreck it. But, once I faced my fears and realized the seasoning wasn’t going to call the cops on my cooking, it quickly became my best buddy.

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Cast iron is naturally non-stick (if you use it right) and completely non-toxic (if it’s made correctly). Lodge pans are perfectly affordable, made in the USA, and have even seemed to help out my iron deficiency. I’m still skeptical of the absolutely-no-soap-when-you-wash-it thing, but my cast iron convert friends and Reddit threads are helping me through the trying time.

5 Buc-ee’s

It’s not just a gas station — it’s a lifestyle

When you see him, it’s time to pull over. By ‘him,’ I mean the greatest beaver of all time, Buc-ee. While I haven’t seen any dam he’s built in the wild, I’m a willing and eager participant in the gas station empire he’s built across Texas and the Southeast. But, it’s not just gas — it has quite literally everything you could imagine from the best breakfast burrito you’ve ever had, beaver-ridden apparel of all categories, the cleanest bathrooms in the world, a fudge bar, an entire wall dedicated to beef jerky, and so much more. Believe me when I say I haven’t even scratched the surface of this particular beaver’s empire.

I swear this isn’t satire. In the last few years, two Buc-ees’ have sprung up in my home state, and its clever marketing that almost exclusively consists of simple billboards for 250 miles leading to its location is the only thing that it needs to do to get your attention. You’ll be counting the mile-markers in anticipation.