Trump’s penguin tariffs spark memes 
Why a tree has the internet captivated 
Delta’s disgusting ‘nightmare’ 
Kid Rock’s weird White House outfit 
Accidental $200 Trump pizza 
Video game roasts Elon Musk 
Easy iPhone hack to catch a cheater 
Right-wingers outraged over chess piece 
Your partner is a cowboy, samurai, or pirate 
Trump’s portrait meltdown 
McDonald’s fries exposed 
Our 10 most read stories of 2024 
This list appeared first in the Daily Dot’s newsletter web_crawlr. If you want to see more content like this before everyone else, sign up for the newsletter here.
We had hundreds of millions of pageviews in 2024. There will likely be less in 2025.
As Facebook fades links altogether, and Google makes debilitating core updates to its algorithm, the news business remains at the mercy of this American media duopoly. Sensitive stories often fail to reach Google’s Discover algorithm, which boasts about 600 million daily users.
We want to be an enormous, accessible, and useful newsroom to our fellow Americans. We want to report from, as our old tagline went, “the frontline of online” to unearth the internet’s wildest secrets. But in 2025, we’d prefer to do that directly with our readers than tap-dancing for tech giants.
Think of the Daily Dot as a rock band. We get radio play—that’s pageviews. Valuable. Important. But having fans who care enough to attend a concert (in this analogy, open this very email with enough regularity that we can brag to prospective sponsors about our newsletter’s peripherals) will always be more sustainable.
Web traffic is uncertain, you are our backbone. So thanks for reading the Daily Dot in 2024, I hope you enjoy this list of the most-popular stories we published this year.
10) ‘If you order Amazon every day…’: Amazon driver has PSA for those ‘same houses’ that order ‘every day’
9) ‘SOMETHING ISN’T ADDING UP’: Gas station customer pays for a gallon of gas. But then they put it into an empty gallon container to check
8) ‘Why didn’t anyone tell me?’: Man realizes sour cream is only 2 ingredients—and it’s way cheaper to make at home
7) ‘This ain’t right?’: Dollar Tree shopper finds Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix tagged at $1.25. Then she reads the box
6) ‘I’m holding my things’: Woman says Walmart shopper asked if he could go in front of her at checkout because he didn’t get shopping cart
5) ‘I can never go back to my Target again’: Woman says Target workers laughed at her while she attempted to get Valentine’s Day Stanley cup
4) ‘It is on every single piece’: Woman buys huge pack of Great Value deluxe singles cheese. Then she notices something unusual
3) ‘If you got paid why you care’: Dealer places an AirTag on sold Toyota 4Runner after buyer didn’t disclose where it was going
2) ‘People use sites like Temu without a second thought’: Best Buy worker issues warning when Walmart tells customer he just needs a $40 adapter
And the most read story at the Daily Dot in 2024 was…
1) ‘It has officially happened’: Mechanic says he can’t work on your car because they’ve officially been locked out of computer systems
The Daily Dot looks back at the year that was in our 2024 Year in Review.
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