For the first half of 2011, it seemed you couldn't go anywhere without someone yelling "Winning!" or "Tiger blood!" A clash between Two and a Half Men star Charlie Sheen (then the highest-paid actor on television) and the series' creator, Chuck Lorre, led to Sheen's very public firing and very public meltdown. The media couldn't help but follow Sheen's spectacular downward spiral, in which he lived with interchangeable blond "goddesses," denounced "trolls" and went on a nationwide tour to spout his catchphrases. But in the second half of the year, Sheen calmed down, laughed at himself during Comedy Central's highest-rated roast ever, reached a reported multimillion-dollar settlement in his lawsuit against Two and a Half Men producer Warner Bros. TV (whose parent company, like TIME's, is Time Warner) and signed a sitcom deal with FX. Talk about winning.
No one could have known that when a Tunisian fruit vendor set himself on fire in a public square, it would incite protests that would topple dictators and start a global wave of dissent. In 2011, protesters didn't just voice their complaints; they changed the world