2021 Pop Culture
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7correct to beat the crowd
50 free 2021 Pop Culture trivia questions with answers — pop culture quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The year 2021 was pop culture's strange in-between year. Cinemas reopened while blockbusters landed on streaming services the same day, a stuck ship became a worldwide joke, and a pair of knitted gloves at a state ceremony launched a thousand memes. On TikTok, centuries-old songs and wobbly stunts went viral within days. This quiz covers the whole year: chart-topping debuts and long-awaited comebacks, superhero films and awards-night winners, the series everyone binged, internet crazes, online money manias, celebrity reunions, sporting headlines and the puzzles people shared. It works for a year-in-review party, a classroom or pub quiz, or for teenagers and adults curious about how much of 2021 they still remember. Every question is multiple choice, and every answer comes with a short explanation, so a wrong guess still leaves you with a story to tell.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Korean drama about deadly playground contests became Netflix's most-watched series in 2021?
Squid Game
Squid Game was written in 2009, but creator Hwang Dong-hyuk could not find a company to fund it until Netflix took an interest about a decade later.
Q 02Which waterway did the container ship Ever Given block for six days in March 2021?
Suez Canal
The Suez Canal stayed shut until fourteen Egyptian, Dutch and Italian tugs pulled the 400-metre ship free, after strong winds had wedged it across both banks.
Q 03Which senator's mittens and face mask at the January 2021 presidential inauguration became a viral meme?
Bernie Sanders
Bernie Sanders wore mittens made by Vermont teacher Jen Ellis, then sold sweatshirts of the photograph and raised at least $1.8 million for charity.
Q 04Which retailer's shares soared in January 2021 as Reddit traders squeezed hedge fund short sellers?
GameStop
GameStop shares rose so fast that app brokerages such as Robinhood halted buying on January 28, a move that drew dozens of class action lawsuits.
Q 05Which sitcom's six stars reunited on HBO Max in May 2021 for an unscripted special?
Friends
Friends returned to Stage 24 in Burbank, the Warner Bros. soundstage known as The Friends Stage, where the cast revisited the apartment and Central Perk sets.
Q 06Which pop star's conservatorship, in place since 2008, did a Los Angeles judge end in November 2021?
Britney Spears
Britney Spears had lived under the arrangement for nearly 14 years, and a New York Times documentary released that February set off a public outcry over it.
Q 07Which new name did Facebook's parent company adopt in October 2021 to signal a shift toward virtual reality?
Meta
Meta was announced after a period of damaging whistleblower leaks, by a company that had started out in 2004 as TheFacebook, Inc.
Q 08Which actor returned beside Andrew Garfield as an earlier Peter Parker in 2021's Spider-Man: No Way Home?
Tobey Maguire
Tobey Maguire had last played the hero in 2007, and his return helped the film gross $1.92 billion, the biggest box office total of any 2021 release.
Q 09Which Disney actress topped the Hot 100 for eight weeks in 2021 with her debut single, Drivers License?
Olivia Rodrigo
Olivia Rodrigo broke Spotify's record for the most single-day streams of a non-holiday song on only the fourth day after the release.
Q 10Which Star Trek actor flew to the edge of space at age 90 aboard a Blue Origin rocket in October 2021?
William Shatner
William Shatner flew as a guest of the company and paid nothing, taking the age record from 82-year-old Wally Funk, who had held it for only three months.
Q 11Which British singer returned after six years with the 2021 album 30 and its lead single, Easy on Me?
Adele
Adele persuaded Spotify to remove the shuffle button from albums for premium users, arguing that the tracks tell a story in the order she intended.
Q 12Which sportswear giant sued over the Satan Shoes, modified sneakers promoted by Lil Nas X in 2021?
Nike
Nike won a settlement that made art collective MSCHF offer refunds on the 666 pairs, each priced at $1,018 and said to contain a drop of human blood.
Q 13Which singer began re-releasing her early albums in 2021 with new recordings of Fearless and Red?
Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift made the new versions after her master recordings were sold, and a ten-minute track from the second became the longest chart-topper the Hot 100 had seen.
Q 21Which Denis Villeneuve film with Timothée Chalamet hit US cinemas and HBO Max on the same day in 2021?
Dune
Dune adapts only the first half of Frank Herbert's novel, and the studios approved the second film only after seeing how the first one opened.
Q 22Which film about a woman living in her van won Best Picture at the Oscars held in April 2021?
Nomadland
Nomadland cast real-life nomads as versions of themselves, and it made Chloé Zhao only the second woman to win the directing Oscar.
Q 23Which Disney film's same-day debut in cinemas and on Disney+ in July 2021 led its star to sue the studio?
Black Widow
Black Widow star Scarlett Johansson said the release broke her contract, and the suit was settled two months later, reportedly for more than $40 million.
Q 14Which K-pop group's English-language single Butter spent ten weeks atop the Hot 100 in summer 2021?
BTS
BTS knocked itself off the top with another single, Permission to Dance, then returned a week later, the first act to displace itself in consecutive weeks.
Q 15Which Canadian singer spent $7 million of his own on his Super Bowl halftime show in February 2021?
The Weeknd
The Weeknd was the first Canadian solo artist to headline the show, singing in a red blazer in front of a set built to resemble the Las Vegas Strip.
Q 16Which rock band won the 2021 Eurovision Song Contest for Italy with the song Zitti e buoni?
Måneskin
Måneskin started out busking on the streets of Rome and came second on Italy's X Factor in 2017, four years before the victory in Rotterdam.
Q 17Which Swedish group released Voyage in 2021, its first album of new songs in forty years?
ABBA
ABBA then staged concerts fronted by digital avatars of the four members, based on how they had looked on their late-1970s tour.
Q 18Which duo did Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak form, topping the Hot 100 in 2021 with Leave the Door Open?
Silk Sonic
Silk Sonic got its name from funk bassist Bootsy Collins, who came up with it after hearing the album and appears on the record as its guest host.
Q 19Which kind of traditional song became a TikTok craze in early 2021 after Nathan Evans sang Wellerman?
Sea shanty
Sea shanty videos spread so widely that the trend was nicknamed ShantyTok, and a remix of the Scottish singer's cover reached number one in the UK.
Q 20Which Dua Lipa song was Billboard's top Hot 100 single of 2021 despite never reaching number one?
Levitating
Levitating was only the fourth single to lead the year-end chart without a week at the top, and the first since Lifehouse's Hanging by a Moment in 2001.
Q 24Which actor made his fifth and final appearance as James Bond in No Time to Die, released in 2021?
Daniel Craig
Daniel Craig first proposed killing off the character in 2006, after the premiere of Casino Royale, and producer Barbara Broccoli agreed.
Q 25Which Disney+ series, the first made by Marvel Studios, paid homage to decades of American sitcoms in 2021?
WandaVision
WandaVision shot its first episode in monochrome before a live studio audience, after its makers sought advice from sitcom veteran Dick Van Dyke.
Q 26Which Apple TV+ comedy, based on a character from NBC Sports soccer promos, won seven Emmys in 2021?
Ted Lasso
Ted Lasso earned 20 nominations for its first season, the most for a freshman comedy up to that point, and Jason Sudeikis won for the title role.
Q 27Which actress won a 2021 Emmy for playing a small-town Pennsylvania detective in HBO's Mare of Easttown?
Kate Winslet
Kate Winslet and her castmates were noted for a mostly accurate Philadelphia accent, a dialect seldom heard in mainstream film and television.
Q 28Which Big Bang Theory actress began sharing the Jeopardy! hosting job with Ken Jennings in 2021?
Mayim Bialik
Mayim Bialik holds a real doctorate in neuroscience from UCLA, close to the field of her sitcom character, the neurobiologist Amy Farrah Fowler.
Q 29Which HBO satire about wealthy guests at a Hawaiian resort began in 2021 as a six-episode limited series?
The White Lotus
The White Lotus was shot at a Four Seasons, the only hotel operator on the islands willing to hand HBO a whole property for 13 weeks.
Q 30Which 2021 Disney animated film follows the Madrigals, a Colombian family blessed with magical gifts?
Encanto
Encanto featured songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda, and its soundtrack became a breakout hit that reached number one on the Billboard 200 album chart.