1. Viral Violence

Video sites such as WorldstarHipHop and YouTube enable the vicious circle of picking fights, recording them and broadcasting them for laughs and retweets. This may seem amusing at the time, but nothing's funny about viral videos of public displays of violence. It shouldn't be entertaining to watch bus drivers, rappers or boyfriends uppercutting, stomping or punching women in front of crowds armed with camera phones. The "uppercut bus driver"; rapper Chief Keef's affiliate Lil Reese; and Young Juve, son of rapper Juvenile, should step far away from the limelight after their shameful acts of violence were caught on tape.

2. Black Hairanoia

Some misguided women have a bad habit of nitpicking each other's appearance just because. However, when it comes to young girls and their hair, the custom needs to be nipped in the bud. Willow Smith is no stranger to critiques (she's caught flak for hair hopping between braids, bangs and blond pixies), but when gymnast Gabby Douglas' ponytail overshadows her historic Olympic win, we have to throw out a penalty flag. As Jada Pinkett Smith so eloquently stated in her daughter Willow's defense, "Little girls should not be a slave to the preconceived ideas of what a culture believes a little girl should be." Solange Knowles also mouthed off about the issue via Twitter, chastising the critics she named the "natural-hair police."

3. The Chrihanna Saga

Christopher Maurice Brown and Robyn Rihanna Fenty. No matter how passionately you may hate or love the controversial pair, they are, in fact, a pair -- or not. Either way, it's out of anyone's control but theirs. End of story. Until they're ready, there will never be a true conclusion or a just resolution to this troubled tale. We must let the newsworthiness of the controversy die. The Root has previously voiced this desire, so here's our last request: Once we start ignoring this relationship drama of their making, it becomes easier to devote our attention to other things -- such as Rihanna's widely successful (numerically speaking) seventh studio album, Unapologetic.

4. "Harmless" Blackface

Blackface is far from a new phenomenon, but it is annoying to see modern-day renditions back to back to back. In 2013 America could do without more incidents of nonblack youths and their so-called innocent jokes -- or "harmless" videos, skits and themed parties featuring white folks smeared with dark, cakey substances, purposely butchering every ounce of English they learned in grade school. Please note: It will never be OK or forgiven. You are going to get called out on it. So quit while you're still ahead.

5. "Stand Your Ground" Laws

On Nov. 23, nine months after Trayvon Martin was killed by George Zimmerman in Sanford, Fla., yet another black Florida youth lost his life as a result of actions premised on the state's highly controversial "Stand your ground" law. Twisted interpretations of the law -- which permits acts of force if a person feels that his or her life is in danger -- have led to the deaths of two unarmed black boys and served as a potential immunity cloak for the nonblack men who killed them. Waiting to do something about these sorts of laws until the next unarmed 17-year-old is shot down shouldn't be an option.

6. YOLO

The saying "You only live once" isn't new, but rapper Drake struck gold by coining the unofficial anthem of 2012: "YOLO." The implication is that, by affixing the wildly overused acronym to the end of any statement, the person talking renders his or her subsequent actions instantly justifiable. For example, "Didn't do my homework, so I'm skipping class today. YOLO!" Or, "Not wearing my glasses today. YOLO!" The problem lies in the fact that people take it too far. Jokes turned to tragedy when a young Cali rapper tweeted that he was driving drunk -- "#F--kitYOLO" -- then died in the car accident that immediately followed.

7. Superstorms

Sandy is going down in the books. Last year the Mineral, Va., earthquake shook things up on the East Coast, but Hurricane Sandy and the northeaster were Mother Nature's claim to fame this year. Northern states such as New York and New Jersey need time to recover from all the water and property damage the storms caused, so hopefully 2013 will grant us more docile weather conditions -- if such a thing exists anymore.

8. Crazy Baby Names

Some might argue that Beyoncé and Jay-Z's bundle of joy, Blue Ivy, has an odd name, but it is fairly tame compared to (noncelebrity) Hashtag Jameson, whose name will be a permanent reminder of the digital age into which she was born. The Kenyan twins named Mitt and Barack, who were born on Election Day, also cannot go without mention. Since "unique" names have reached their peak this year, maybe people will reach for more classic-sounding monikers in 2013.

9. Voter Suppression

Election 2012 was monumental. Although some thought that voter enthusiasm would not match that of the 2008 race, the results showed otherwise. A major factor in the significant voter turnout was the determination to combat voter-suppression tactics. Whether they came in the form of new voter-ID laws, email hoaxes, restricted early voting or impossibly long lines in urban areas, there were a handful of obstacles thrown into the mix that could have slowed down or halted the black or Latino vote. These conveniently targeted tactics need not resurface come the next election.

10. Music's Obsession With "Molly"

Move over, trap-house crack and Mary Jane -- Molly is the new "it" drug of music. Whether or not they actually use the Ecstasy 2.0 drug, rappers like Kanye West, 2 Chainz, Lil Wayne and Meek Mill and newcomers like Trinidad James have been heavily quoted about the social substance this year. But hopefully the dangerous designer drug won't overtake urban communities, and the phase will die out sooner rather than later.

11. All Things "Ratchet"

"I can't give a dictionary definition, but I can say that it's like if 'ghetto' and 'hot ... mess' had a baby. And that baby had no father and became a stripper, then made a sex tape with an athlete and then became a reality star," filmmaker Issa Rae said when trying to define the popular term "ratchet." She told us that "over the years, the term evolved into something to describe a type of behavior or way of life." In 2012 the word has started to become an all-encompassing adjective. Can't we find other ways to describe situations instead of tossing them into the ratchet box? Let's make use of all the vocabulary words we learned during our SAT test-prep days.

12. Hating on Obama

President Obama has a host of problems to tackle the minute he's sworn in for another term in January. He's currently handling the fiscal cliff, must provide new jobs, lower the unemployment rate and deal with a slew of other domestic and foreign issues. The last thing he needs is additional hate in the form of distractions looming over his head. He's become a pro at taking heat from the Republican Party, but Donald Trump and his ilk need to sit down with their citizenship conspiracy theories and on-air bribes. Mitt Romney's playing nice for now -- they should take a page out of his book. To those who didn't vote for Obama: Sorry, but you have to back off and let the man do his job.

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