From football star Marcus Rashford to Corrie queen Julie Hesmondhalgh, there were some Mancs who inspired us more than any others in 2021.
It really was a year to be proud of our home city and its people, whether they were born here or drawn here.
We wanted to honour and celebrate the individuals who make such a big impact and help to build Manchester into the best city in the world.
So we launched our Manc of the Month series back in the summer, and rounded up some seriously impressive figures.
Here are all the Mancunians we’ve celebrated in 2021.
ADVERTISEMENT
Marcus Rashford
Credit: BBC / Paul Cooper
What a year it’s been for Marcus Rashford – both on and off the pitch.
The Wythenshawe-born Manchester United and England star has dedicated his own time and money, tirelessly and consistently, to various causes.
ADVERTISEMENT
His most significant project has been his mission to #EndChildFoodPoverty, which has seen him take on MPs, partner with FareShare UK, and team up with chef Tom Kerridge for a series of affordable recipe ideas.
Towards the end of 2020, Rashford also launched his own book club, with 50,000 books donated to schools.
Julie Hesmondhalgh is a Coronation Street icon – but it’s her work away from the cobbles that really makes her such an inspiration.
Most recently, Julie was spotted volunteering at a vaccine centre in Tameside.
The actress is also a patron of charities Trans Media Watch, Maundy Relief, Marple Drama, WAST, Manchester People’s Assembly, Reuben’s Retreat, The Alex Williams Believe and Achieve Trust, and The Sophie Lancaster Foundation – seriously, a busy woman.
Her tireless work to end austerity, protect the NHS, and look after Manchester’s vital cultural scene makes her a worthy addition to our Mancs of the Year list.
The Wanted star Tom Parker received the devastating news that he had a terminal inoperable brain tumour, known as glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), back in October 2020.
Ever since, he’s worked to raise awareness for brain tumours, saying there are ‘massive improvements’ to be made in both treatment and research.
In an emotion post on social media earlier this year, Tom confirmed that his tumour is stable.
It’s allowed him to rejoin his bandmates for a new album – Most Wanted: Greatest Hits – and to take to the stage one more time.
Mary-Ellen is one of the most inspiring Mancs of 2021.
When s*** hit the fan back in March 2020, a lot of us locked ourselves away with Tiger King and Zoom quizzes.
But not Mary-Ellen. Faced with a restaurant full of good produce, she rallied with other business owners to get tasty, homemade meals out to the most vulnerable people in Greater Manchester.
It was a remarkable effort launched at break-neck speed, but it didn’t stop there.
Eat Well MCR is still, almost two years later, providing meals to those affected by food inequality – you can donate via their Give Support page.
Manchester just wouldn’t be Manchester without art.
Right at the forefront of our modern cultural scene is Akse-P19, an artist who creates photo-realistic murals right across the region.
They’re not just stunning works of art though – they’re symbols of hope, unity, and peace.
This inspiring Manc has created significant works including a giant portrait of Marcus Rashford, a multi-storey mural of late Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis for World Mental Health Day in 2020, and a tribute to Captain Sir Tom Moore.
Bev Craig has recently taken up the mantel as leader of Manchester City Council after Sir Richard Leese stepped down after more than 25 years in the role.
She is both the first woman and the first openly-gay councillor to lead our local council, something she says is the ‘honour of her life’.
She’s dedicated to creating a fairer, cleaner, safer, greener and more supportive city.
Taemin at AO Arena: Take the K-pop world’s ‘Advice’ – you need to watch him live
Thomas Melia
This time last month, South Korean star, SHINee and SuperM boyband member, Taemin showed Manchester the real meaning of ‘The Rizzness’. It was our first K-pop gig and won’t be our last.
Normally, if you ask me what I’m getting up to on a Tuesday night, I’d respond with the usual: “Nothing.” Ask me this random but eye-opening night back in March 2025, and I’d say, “Watching the ‘Ephemeral Glaze’ tour”.
Opening with a song labelled ‘Déjà vu’, ironically, felt from the truth, as the minute the performer stepped onto the stage, the whole crowd was watching what felt like an all-new spectacle come to life – even for some of the already inducted K-pop fans inside the AO Arena.
Following up with ‘Guilty’, I’d be lying if I told you we didn’t love this performance. It wasn’t overshadowed by that unbelievable grand opening either – if anything, it was even better.
A majestic pose from Taemin at AO Arena in Manchester, performing to a lively crowd.Credit: Audio North
This was a setlist that just keeps on giving: after this, ‘Advice’ greets our ears and fans erupt in various screams and cries, to which Taemin, 31, certainly appreciated.
It’s high energy through and through, as the next song, ‘Idea’, felt like the missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle for those of us not so used to this kind of music, well and truly captivating the Manc crowd.
Closing what was merely his opening segment with this song was definitely a good ‘Idea’… (sorry).
Its title may draw from a comedic viral term used to describe someone with great flirting skills, a.k.a. ‘rizz’, but ‘The Rizzness’ is no laughing matter.
Fans caught on quickly, and as soon as the first note was pumped out into the arena, the atmosphere reached whole new heights and those familiar screams at an other-worldly pitch returned.
I never thought I’d see the day where AO Arena screamed, “You know I got the rizz, the rizzness”, but there’s a first time for everything, I guess.
Taemin and his dancers were electric at AO Arena.Credit: The Manc Group
Being from Korea, 31-year-old Taemin tried his best to communicate with the crowd throughout the night, taking breaks after back-to-back performances to gauge the audience’s reactions.
The South Korean superstar didn’t take long to warm up to the crowd and showed off his cheeky side, telling the arena, “Only 4 more songs” before finishing the sentence with “I lied”.
‘Criminal’ had me and the rest of Manchester weak in the knees; the choreography was flawless throughout, but this was a true highlight. Ending with ‘Say Less’, Taemin knew exactly what he was doing, putting a song that catchy right at the end, as this was all that replayed in my head on the train home.
Put it this way, we may still be relative newbies to the world of Korean pop music, but with another big name heading to Manchester, we’re definitely keen to find out more.
The best Manchester-based anime-style memes we’ve seen online as Ghibli craze takes over
Danny Jones
Now, the internet can be used for a lot of silly and pointless things – you might argue us sharing our favourite memes every morning is a prime example of that – but we have to admit, the second we saw a Manchester-inspired Studio Ghibli image on social media, we were hooked.
If you have absolutely no idea what we’re talking about, there is a current craze that has taken over the internet, which has seen recognisable memes and images recreated in the style of the iconic Ghibli anime films, created by legendary animator and filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki.
Once you’ve found one, you tend to start spotting them more and more frequently, and in the case of the chronically online like us, we’ve been inundated with them for weeks now.
People are using AIto create them in various different contexts, but it won’t surprise you to learn that our favourite Ghibli/anime memes are those based around Manchester. For example:
Bloody hell, the internet really is brilliant sometimes, isn't it? 😂 https://t.co/virpFx60u7
As it happens, this was the first and perhaps still the best we’ve seen to date, but it didn’t stop us from falling down an animated rabbit hole looking for others.
To be honest, we didn’t actually have to do much searching ourselves as they’re absolutely all over the algorithm at the minute, and have been for a good month or so.
‘Ghibli memes’ may be an overgeneralisation of what is a rather specific and famed art style, but this ongoing flood of anime-style cartooons is being created by users giving prompts to ChatGPT, the increasingly popular large language model (LLM) and AI tool.
Designed with OpenAI software, the artificial intelligence chatbot can do everything from write extensive study notes and flash cards to fixing blurry images, writing computer code, entire essays and quite literally countless other things.
In this instance, people are just reimagining moments from the zeitgeist and famous memes in this style by feeding the image to ChatGPT, along with an ‘in the style of Studio Ghibli’ prompt.
One for the Blues…And the Reds.All of these images have been designed using ChatGPT. (Credit: Eleventh Minute/centredevils via X)
Pretty cool, right?
You’ll find that footballer Twitter (sorry, X*), in particular, is absolutely full of fan accounts recreating iconic club scenes in the Miyazaki art style, giving their favourite players big ‘Chibi’ eyes (another unique aspect of anime) and so on.
It’s all just a bit of a laugh, after all; even we here at The Manc put ChatGPT to the test back in June 2023 and asked it to design ‘the perfect day out in Manchester’ – to varying degrees of success, we might add.
As ever with machine-learning, the more information you feed it, the better the result and although we know these are original pictures being reimagined, it still goes to show just how impressive and varied AI is becoming.
We’ve also enjoyed some that aren’t necessarily Manc but are quintessential British humour or simply more universal memes.
Exhibits E and F…
Even after all these years, we feel like we still see this in some context at least once a week – and it still makes us laugh.‘What a sad little life, Jane…’Credit: brandsynario (via Instagram)/No Context Brits (via X)
Despite these memes riding a real wave right now, the Ghibli portrait fad is just that; there are plenty of other aesthetics being toyed with, too.
Actually, it already has, as we’ve now started coming across people making action figure versions of themselves and/or famous people, full decked out with accessories inside blister packs and everything.
On the other hand, many people are understandably concerned about what this means for artists and although there is no substitute for genuine human expression, whatever form that may come in, lots of people are railing against it as the possibility of AI-based pop music has been posited.
With that in mind, maybe the best twist we’ve seen is our very own Stanley Chow subverting the trend and doing Ghibli stuff in his equally iconic style. We’ll take these geometric gems over computer-generated imitations any day.
For now, it’s just a bit of fun and we confess we’ve got some light entertainment out of it, but the increasing possibilities being thrown up by AI in terms of art do pose a lot more complex questions.
We’ll finish with one final example because let’s be honest, there’s only really one thing on our minds at the minute – at least until the summer finally rolls around…
Let us know if you’ve seen any other fun examples and what you make of the whole Ghibli meme trend down in the comments.
Daisy Jackson -
31st December 2021 
