Least influential people of 2012

 Was anyone inspired by Mitt Romney? Did anyone vote enthusiastically for Mitt Romney? Of course not. Voting for Romney is like hooking up with the last single person at the bar at 4 a.m. The only successful thing he did this year was embody every black stand-up comedian's impression of a white person. Thank God the election's over. No more endless photos of Mitt staring winsomely off-camera with that attempted smile on his face. No more glaring campaign mishaps week after week after week. No more labored media efforts to make him look like anything other than Sheldon Adelson's pampered money Dumpster. Good-bye, Mitt. I hope you enjoy the rest of your life quietly ensconced at Lake Winnipesaukee, blissfully ignorant of the plight of anyone who doesn't have $300 million squirreled away in the Bahamas.

I didn't think it was possible for God to invent a worse driver than Lindsay Lohan, but here you go. Bynes spent all of 2012 avoiding acting gigs and trying desperately to run over your dog. And yet she isn't anywhere close to being as fascinating a train wreck as Lohan. I could watch Lohan implode for years and years, yet Bynes merits only a token shrug. Step up your game, missy. Sometime in the near future, there's a sensational vehicular-manslaughter trial with your name on it!

That cheerleading outfit isn't making you look any younger, Madge. It's time for you to stop putting out aggressively bland comeback albums and make room for Ke$ha and Katy and the other 800 female artists out there who change outfits every five minutes to distract people from their terrible singing.

 Let us take a stroll through the razor-sharp legal mind of Joe Amendola: "I know! I'll have my client go on national TV prior to his trial to be grilled by Bob Costas so we can all witness him declare, ‘I enjoy young people,' after searching blankly for the proper response to the question ‘Are you sexually attracted to young boys?' as if Costas just asked him where he put his car keys. How can this possibly go wrong?"

Congratulations, Dwight! You're a Laker now. And all you had to do to become one was spend months making vague demands of the Orlando Magic and then backtracking on those demands like a spineless pussy until every American hated your guts and wanted to see you fail. "I'll stay in Orlando if you fire my coach! Or maybe I won't. Or maybe you could fire the coach and then build a statue of me made out of frozen butter. NO WAIT TRADE ME TO BROOKLYN NO WAIT DON'T TRADE ME THERE BECAUSE I THOUGHT BROOKLYN WAS MORE CONVENIENT TO MANHATTAN THAN IT ACTUALLY IS." In a just world, Dwight Howard will hurt his knee and doctors will take seventeen months to make a proper diagnosis.

For two decades I have waited for the next Cobain, a voice so original that it changes the face of rock 'n' roll. Finally, this year, an outsider came along who broke the stranglehold of processed pop and became a global sensation. It's just too bad that the artist in question is a Belgian emo guy who can't handle a simple breakup with a hint of grace. "You didn't have to stoooooop so low." You make Alanis Morissette sound like Slayer. You are rock's genocide. Also, the next time you film yourself naked for a video, wash your feet.

There's nothing funny about the tragic shooting death of Trayvon Martin. However, there is something morbidly comedic about a man deluding himself into thinking that his life is in danger because a black teenager walking by might assault him with a bag of Skittles. In George Zimmerman's world, he's a hero. Thankfully, very, very few other human beings live in George Zimmerman's world.

 It was a game effort by the first lady to get Americans to eat healthier. She founded the "Let's Move!" campaign to get our children to contemplate forward locomotion. She even wrote a book about growing her own vegetables, which many people bought as a passive-aggressive way of telling someone they're fat. And yet we're still all hopeless corpulent shits. You tried, Mrs. Obama. You really did. Sorry we're such poor listeners. Now why not join the winning team and indulge in this delicious pint of Häagen-Dazs Caramel Cone ice cream? It's so rich and sweet and delectable. Come on. REWARD YOURSELF.

The individual-medley-of-douchiness world record was shattered this year by Lochte, the U.S. swimmer who managed to increase the Ashton Kutcher-ness of the London Games by 80 percent. Lochte would have been far more influential if he'd come in dead last. That way, American fathers could have turned to their sons and said, "You see? This is what happens to you when you buy American-flag mouth grills and act like a dipshit." There will always be a place on this list for the man who invented the catchphrase Jeah!

The disgraced former NFL defensive coordinator—the man who pioneered the New Orleans Saints' bounty program—is the rare person stupid enough to deserve being scapegoated. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell needed a proper villain to make sure that fans thought the violence inherent in football was actually the work of a few rogue actors, and Williams played the role perfectly by putting his bounty system into PowerPoint and ordering his charges to "kill the head" of opposing players. What a moron. Also, no grown man would ever be inspired by the following actual Gregg Williams motivational slogans:

"Respect/Fear!!!"

"This isn't even shooing the chicken."

"FUCKING COMPLACENT."

"Bus your trays back to the cafeteria!"