Little news in the past 12 months was quite as traumatic as the realization that GusGus, a 3-week-old goat, had been stolen from the Arizona State Fair. Like people across the country, we waited with bated breath for updates, because petting zoo officials warned he was unlikely to survive more than a day or two away from his mother, who, by the way, was reportedly crying out for him — could anything be sadder? Thankfully, after 20 hours of sheer panic and a near-collective societal breakdown, someone found little GusGus wandering near a canal in north Phoenix. Though the story has a happy ending and GusGus was safely returned to his mother, we're still a little dismayed that the person who took him was never caught — c'mon, what kind of monster does something like that?

Remember that time a series of three massive earthquakes ripped through central Arizona, tearing down buildings and spreading hysteria in its wake? Yeah, we don't either. But what we do remember was the series of very small earthquakes that gently shook parts of the state on November 1, causing the occasional dish to rattle or dog to bark, and really only because of the totally outsized and hilarious social-media response it prompted. Within hours of the third aftershock, hashtags like #WeWillRebuild and #PrayforAZ were trending on Twitter and Facebook, accompanied by photos of a toppled lawn chair or spilled water glass. Some ASU students demanded classes be canceled, while others expressed shock that the vibrations they felt weren't just an exploding meth lab. Our favorite reaction, though, was a mock breaking-news meme warning of tsunamis in Tempe Town Lake. According to the experts, more than 1,000 small earthquakes are recorded in Arizona each year, meaning you might want to batten down the hatches, because no one knows when the next one will strike.

We'd like to think that the exoneration of Leslie Allen Merritt Jr., the then 21-year-old landscaper accused of terrorizing the city of Phoenix by driving around I-10 and shooting vehicles, was one of the more satisfying things to happen this past year. Merritt was singled out as the culprit based on flawed forensic evidence, and had his life — and the life of his fiancée and two young children — turned upside down after he was arrested and held on a bail he couldn't afford to pay. The public lashed out at state and county officials for seeming to ignore the whole presumption of innocence thing, so when the state's case against Merritt completely fell apart and a judge basically erased Merritt's bond, it felt like a vindication of due process. To top it all off, Merritt is poised to bring a $10 million claim against the state, Governor Doug Ducey, and Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery for his wrongful arrest and public vilification.

Who would have thought that three small words — "We got him!" — could create such an internet firestorm when an apparently overly excited Governor Doug Ducey tweeted the message last September? The tweet was meant to break the news to a terrified public that the Department of Public Safety had arrested a suspect in the I-10 shooter case, but quickly backfired and turned into an online civics lesson: "What happened to innocent until proven guilty?" and "You're the chief executive of our state, show some respect to due process," people responded. Even now, months later, it's hard to put a finger on it, but there was just something about the initial tweet that made the public and media wonder if Ducey and the DPS had jumped the gun, and as it turned out, the hunch proved accurate — point being, Mr. Governor, as a public official, watch your words, especially in the age of social media.

What do you do when a teary-eyed, feds-hating Arizona militant uploads a video to Facebook in order to teach his kids why he had to take over a wildlife refuge in Oregon to (somehow) help protect their freedoms and the Constitution? Why, you make a hashtag, of course! And thus is the genesis story of #DaddySworeAnOath, possibly one of the best things to come out of the Bundy-family-led takeover of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge earlier this year. After John Darnielle of the indie-folk band the Mountain Goats watched the viral video of Jon Ritzheimer sitting in his truck, holding a pocket-sized copy of the U.S. Constitution, and shedding a few tears while telling his two daughters that he's in Oregon — and not with them on Christmas and New Year's Eve — because he took an oath to defend the Founding Fathers' document, it was as if he couldn't help himself. Darnielle made his own ridiculous video, and posted it with the following message: "I call on all of patriotic Twitter to get behind the wheel of the #daddysworeanoath car and do the necessary." The Twittersphere responded gloriously.

Brian Dunn and Robert Hoekman Jr. launched the short-fiction reading series Spillers at the Crescent Ballroom in August 2015, and since then have continued to refine the series through live readings and an insightful podcast series, the Spillers After Show. Featuring readings from and long-form interviews with Spillers readers like essayist Tara Ison, novelist Patrick Michael Finn, Spilled Milk editor Leah Newsom, and poet Joel Salcido, the podcast features discussions and dissections of the creative process, with Dunn and Hoekman offering probing questions and thoughtful responses to bring the intimacy of the live shows to your iPhone.

While you can follow along with their adventures in the desert and abroad on a variety of social-media platforms, Robert and Christina Martinez really shine on Snapchat. Better known as New Darlings, the blogger couple documents trips to their favorite haunts (you're gonna notice a fair amount of Lux), gym angst, home-decor decisions, and the newest records they've picked up — all adorned with stickers and emojis and geofilters that make snapping more fun than, well, basically any other mode of social sharing. And, hey, watching these two keep busy might just leave you inspired. To do what, exactly? Well, at least to put on something adjacent to cute and leave the house.

There are thousands of worthy Instagrammers out there who focus on documenting the amazing desert landscape we have here in Arizona. And who can blame them? Between the interesting plant life that manages to thrive in our harsh environment and the breathtaking sunsets that make the sweltering summer heat worth it, there's plenty of beauty to capture. But Donjay, who aptly posts under the Instagram handle @donjay, shows the wonder of the desert and this city that has grown within it through his own eye, and we can't look away. Clean, natural, bold, and often creatively integrating a human element, Donjay captures the spirit of Phoenix and the surrounding areas through photos.

Ask and you shall receive ... a duck face? After Arizona Diamondbacks commentators Steve Berthiaume and Bob Brenly asked the crowd at a game last October to take selfies and post them to Twitter, the two could not stop laughing about a group of ASU Alpha Chi Omega sorority sisters heeding their request. "Every girl in the picture is locked into her phone. Every single one is dialed in ... They're all just completely transfixed by the technology," one of them says. For a few straight minutes, the sportscasters continued to narrate the sisters' actions — "Gotta take a selfie with the hot dog. Selfie with the churro. Selfie just of a selfie ... Here's my first bite of the churro, here's my second bite of the churro" — launching the girls to viral fame. Critics of the two men accused them of sexism. "Just imagine a world where young women could grow up and feel confident in loving themselves without grown-ass adult men mocking them," one viewer tweeted. But the girls didn't seem to mind, posing for a group selfie that was tweeted out by the official D-backs Twitter account later that night.

Holiday video greetings are a tradition for Chandler's Whitney and Micah Slade and their kids. One year, the video showed the family swimming in a Yuletide pool full of Xmas cheer; another had them literally climbing the walls of a 1950s living room. In 2015, the Slade parents wanted something clever and warmhearted that would also teach their four children a morals lesson — that some people don't have as much as the Slades do — in the bargain. Inspired by the song "There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays," the Slades decided to build a tiny house and give it away to someone in need. Their frankly arty video, featuring a lobster, a trout, and the family's pet snake, depicted the Slades building the teeny-tiny house while Micah lip-syncs to Perry Como's version of the popular Christmas tune. It went viral, natch, and that was nice. But nicer still was giving away the 160-square-foot house to a single mom in Pensacola, Florida, who'd been living in the maintenance room of the local RV park where she worked.