Remembering 2025: The ‘Sure, Why Not’ of Years

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And you may find yourself on a Jet2Holiday. And you may find yourself talking to a guy, who isn’t even Australian, with a moustache and mullet combo rattling an iced matcha in a crop top. And you may find yourself squinting at a photo of pop-star-turned-space tourist Katy Perry snuggling up to former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on a political visit to Japan. And you may find yourself at risk of losing your job to ChatGPT, watching Time name ​“The Architects of AI” their Person of the Year, muttering ​“Spongebob, big guy, pants, ok” while trying to select a Labubu that best represents your aesthetic. And you may ask yourself, ​“Well how did I get here?”

By anyone’s estimation, 2025 has been a fever dream. The males have been performative. The Gallagher brothers are back together. The Pope is American. Gooners, Baltimore hardcore band Turnstile, and ​‘being Scouse’ have all gone mainstream. What else? 4chan is suing Ofcom. Māori Christians from New Zealand did the Haka in tribute to Charlie Kirk at a far-right rally in London. Donald Trump is bisexual? Truly, this has been the ​“sure, why the hell not” of years. Every grave news item and weird cultural trend has had a lifespan of roughly three days, exploding and dying like stars with unmedicated ADHD. Every scandal from the Diddy trial to the incest plot line on The White Lotus has been pushed through the same posting cycle, handled with the same tonal sensibility and degree of seriousness (which is to say: very little). All in all, it’s hard to tell what to invest in anymore.

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In that respect, not much has changed in the last 12 months. Or, indeed, the last four years. The main difference is there is now a palpable sense of political nihilism and compassion fatigue. A combination of everything sucking, nothing changing despite everyone knowing that everything sucks, and patience for the mid-2010s-to-early-2020s pressure to ​“speak out” about the world’s numerous ongoing tragedies running dry. This has prompted a swing towards libertarian individualism, as people respond to their unpredictable circumstances by grasping for any semblance of self-control. It’s also prompted an even bigger swing towards far-right populism and hate crime, as evidenced by mass ICE deportations in the US, thousands-strong ​“Unite the Kingdom” rallies in the UK, and a rise in anti-migrant vigilantism across the board.

On a cultural level, this atmosphere has been distilled into the phrase of the year, ​“woke is dead” – which has been welcomed by conservative pundits as a return to ​“common sense,” but I think more accurately represents a change in the social media landscape. Bigger platforms are actively suppressing certain talking points – pro-Palestinian language or issues affecting sex workers, for instance – through removing posts and limiting reach, while at the same time giving free reign for the worst people in the world not just to post as much racist rage-bait and ethically questionable pornography as possible, but to actively make money from it. That, obviously, skews the output of a large chunk of the internet, and our subsequent perspective on the world (particularly in the minds of those who don’t spend much time in the world). The platforms that defined the 2010s are now almost entirely functionally useless. They no longer represent the underground, or the countercultural, or facilitate forms of self-expression that might not be safe or possible in real life. They might better be described as antisocial media, in the psychiatric sense of the word. 

Somehow the world offline, burning though it may be, is looking ever more appealing. So, while it might seem that everyone is either a theory-bashing bedroom tankie or a foaming-at-the-mouth fascist, because that’s what the glowing rectangle beams into our brains every second of the day, in reality there are also normal people everywhere fighting against ICE, protecting their neighbours, and who don’t have a fucking clue who Nick Land is. You’re probably one of them, and you actually make up the majority. Isn’t that nice to remember?

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The other big change in 2025 has been the unbridled ascent of AI, the societal role of which has jumped from ​“what would your group chat look like as Ghibli characters lol” to ​“what if the only jobs left on earth are tech CEO and plumber?” I don’t have a positive spin to offer on that, sorry. It’s poised to usher in the biggest transformation of the workplace since factory automation, only in most cases it won’t even make things simpler. Have you tried to engage with a retail customer service bot or use a third party app to book a medical appointment recently? Yeah. Not good. We are staring down the barrel of an employment bloodbath, as well as a global cortisol spike in the form of infinite procedural annoyances.

No one will be paying attention to that come January, however, because The Epstein files are due to be released. Happy new year! In the meantime, let us reflect on some highlights of the one we just experienced.

THE YEAR IN MUSIC

Every year there is a dominant artistic medium. In 2025, in my opinion, it was music. From UK underground rappers (Esdeekid, fakemink, Jim Legxacy) and American weirdos (Ethel Cain, 2hollis, Cameron Winter / Geese), to new generation trip-pop (oklou, After, james k) and the unexpected resurgence of elder statesmen (Deftones, Clipse, Lily Allen), there has been a veritable buffet of good shit to tap into across pretty much all genres. Meanwhile, in terms of headline news, Coldplay made a sizeable contribution to the Viral Hall of Fame when a tech CEO was caught having an affair with his CPO on the jumbotron at one of their shows, multiple high-profile artists including Kneecap have been embroiled in international news scandals and/​or domestic legal proceedings for their stance on Palestine, and Kendrick Lamar delivered a Super Bowl performance that doubled as a final coffin nail for Drake’s street cred if not career. It’s been active.

THE YEAR IN FILM

By contrast, the box office has been mid this year. There, I said it! Sinners, 28 Years Later, Warfare, Honey Don’t!, Frankenstein, Pillion – all hotly debated online, none actually that great. There have been some exceptions with the likes of Weapons and the entirely justified almost-three-hour One Battle After Another, but overall it’s been an underwhelming 12 months of cinema. Mind you, Marty Supreme doesn’t come out in the UK until Boxing Day. Timothée Chalamet has been accepting ​“White Boy of the Year” awards, shouting out Susan Boyle, and trading bars with Esdeekid on a promo run to rival a presidential campaign, so there’s still everything to play for.

THE YEAR IN UPRISINGS

Political nihilism might have the west vaping towards the end in a fugue state, but throughout the rest of the world Gen Z have been successfully toppling governments or literally dying trying. In Nepal, youth-driven protests over corruption and wealth inequality led to the resignation of prime minister K.P. Sharma Oli and a makeshift parliamentary election on Discord. In the capital of Madagascar, rallies against chronic water and electricity shortages escalated into calls for a complete overhaul of the political system, leading to violent clashes with security forces and a military coup. In Peru, the president was impeached following mass protests over a controversial new pension law. Though not linked in any tangible sense, the movements are linked in spirit. Emerging as a sort of emblem for shared frustration and desire for change, one image could be seen repeatedly on flags and placards in each country: a skull and cross-bones wearing a straw hat, taken from the Japanese manga One Piece (some protesters in Madagascar swapped his headgear for a traditional Betsileo bucket hat). Citizens of the UK, take note.

THE YEAR IN SEX / SLOP

I was planning on doing these as separate categories but, to be honest, they have had quite similar trajectories. From the rise of gooning to custom-built AI porn stars, our increasingly isolated sex lives and the omnipresence of artificial content are becoming inextricable – in the digital imagination, at least. No wonder ​“slop” is Merriam Webster’s word of the year.

THE YEAR IN FOLK DEVILS

In a crowded field, you have to hand it to these two individuals for becoming – actively, it would seem – the most viscerally detested people on the planet. Let’s hear it for Bonnie Blue, a British porn star whose viral stunt gang bangs have seen her deported from Indonesia, described by critics as ​“sick poison,” and embraced by Reform UK. And let’s give it up for Peter Thiel, a billionaire tech investor and Bible enthusiast who has recently turned his hand to hosting off-the-record lectures about the antichrist. ​“A basic definition of the antichrist: some people think of it as a type of very bad person,” he warned. ​“What I will focus on is the most common and most dramatic interpretation of antichrist: an evil king or tyrant or anti-messiah who appears in the end times.” Presumably he’s one of those wealthy types who’s really into minimalist interior design and therefore doesn’t have mirrors at home.

THE YEAR IN MEN

Between The Chair Company, The Rehearsal, and Friendship, it’s been a banner year for interrogations of contemporary masculinity on screen. Co-created by and starring Tim Robinson, The Chair Company follows a family man, historically prone to episodes of inadequacy and hyper-fixation, who becomes obsessed with uncovering a vast corporate conspiracy after falling off his chair at a keynote. This year’s season of Nathan Fielder’s The Rehearsal is arguably the most elaborate study in autism ever conducted. And Friendship – a feature film starring Tim Robinson and featuring comedian Conner O’Malley, who The Ringer dubbed ​“the patron saints of male frustration” – is basically a campfire horror story about that one dude who can’t hang. While very different offerings they each, in their own way, take the insecurities that plague the modern everyman to their most absurd and tragic conclusions.

Emma Garland is a culture writer and editor based in London. Follow her on Instagram.

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