2024 has come and gone, and left us with more memes than we can count. But among them, some of them stick out in the pop culture landscape as true paragons of villainy and bad taste. From characters in movie franchises to, um, Elon Musk, they’ve made their mark on the social discourse this year, for better or worse. And is there any better way to ring out the year than by marking their various misdeeds?.
In no particular order, here are the biggest pop culture villains of 2024. Turns out, Austin Butler can do villain. And he can do villain very well, as his turn in the second instalment of blockbuster franchise Dune proves. In it, Butler plays Feyd-Rautha, the unhinged nephew of the evil Baron Harkonnen and rocker of an all-bald look. Also, the person Timothee Chalamet’s Paul would have married if he’d been born a woman.
![[THAILAND-ANIMAL]](https://static.standard.co.uk/2024/09/16/14/53/THAILAND-ANIMAL-cs11oyti.jpeg?trim=118,0,118,0&quality=75&auto=webp&width=960)
There is a weird kind of sexual chemistry there, but Butler plays it (as he plays the entire role) with a kind of psychopathic unpredictability. Anybody who licks their sword after killing somebody is somebody to stay far, far away from. The UK finally got its first Love is Blind season earlier this year. And because nothing brings the nation together faster or more cohesively than a villain, we got one of those too. Step forward, Sam Klein. The product manager first raised eyebrows in the pods, where he emotionally manipulated Nicole and Jasmine, boasting about “if you saw me, then I think you might be impressed”, or that the book of his life would be “one of the best books that someone could ever read.”.
