From Labubus to Kendrick Lamar: Looking back at pop culture moments that defined 2025

The year of 2025 has come to a close — and it feels safe to say that pop culture did not hold back on those 365 days.

If anything, the online mainstream grew louder and stranger than before. The year offered a constant stream of moments that were hard to ignore (whether you wanted to or not) ranging from viral obsessions to a music rivalry that spilled onto the largest stage in the world.

Generation Alpha’s increasing dominance had a major, and surprising, cultural chokehold on us in 2025. KPop Demon Hunters became more than just a film when it took off on social media. It became a soundtrack, an aesthetic, and a characteristic of a particular online community. 

When you combine that with the popularity of collecting Labubus, which managed to be simultaneously cute and creepy, it became evident that younger consumers are setting trends more quickly than ever before. Their tastes are hyper-online, blatantly narrow, and totally unconcerned with whether previous generations “get it” or not.

When it came to TV and film, online audiences were devoted to films with strong visual identities and unusual storytelling that were more experimental and took chances.

And then there were those clothing ads. On the surface, the Katseye and Sydney Sweeney jeans war seemed absurd, but it showed how much people value celebrity bodies, relatability, and branding. The conversation went beyond denim. It was a critique of marketing, beauty standards, and the true target audience for fashion. It was occasionally draining, but it served as a metaphor for how pop culture conversations currently function: nothing exists in a vacuum.

But one of 2025’s most pivotal moments came from music. Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl performance was the undeniable peak of his long dispute with Drake. It was bizarre to see one of the largest cultural institutions in the world turned into a platform for public poetic domination.

Lamar didn’t merely insult Drake, he delivered a cultural event that became one of those “you had to be there” pop culture memories. Social media erupted in an instant, flooding timelines with think pieces, memes, and discussions.

Despite some criticism, #BookTok continued to have an impact on bestseller lists. Younger readers increasingly engaging with literature is great, but #BookTok also leads to a valid weariness of overhyped, cliché novels that don’t live up to expectations.

Social media, as always, continued to be both fascinating and overwhelming. Sharing jokes, nostalgic memories, and harmless trends that momentarily reduce the size of the internet made some moments feel happy and communal. Others emphasized how quickly we move on. Viral releases, scandals, and other moments hardly had time to breathe before the next thing took their place. In fact, 2025 showed us how fleeting pop culture can feel.

2025 seemed more sensitive and self-aware than prior years. Pop culture was continuously being examined in real time rather than only existing. Viewers are more intelligent, analytical, and reluctant to accept stories without challenging them. Because of this change, entertainment is now both more demanding and more engaging.

If 2025 has shown us anything, it is that pop culture continues to serve as a mirror, reflecting our life in all of its chaos, humour, and profoundness. The past year undoubtedly made an impression, whether we liked it or not.

Let’s hope for equilibrium in 2026 — more creativity, more space, and maybe less chaos driven by algorithms.