From memes to public mishaps, 2025 was a 12 months of nonstop viral moments.
Nonetheless, probably the most viral moments of the 12 months didn’t simply rack up views on-line — they drove public discourse, sparked debates and highlighted simply how a lot on-line moments can form real-world traits.
Labubus
A toy known as Labubu is displayed in Dundalk, Eire, December 10, 2025.
Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters
Arguably probably the most well-known viral pattern of 2025, Chinese language Labubu dolls took the world by storm.
The plush toys had been created by Hong Kong-born Belgian artist Kasing Lung primarily based on figures from Nordic mythology.
The collectables made toy firm Pop Mart a billion-dollar enterprise, as Labubus offered for as much as hundreds of {dollars} on the resale market, fuled by the various celebrities toting the keychains round in public.
Emily Brough, the pinnacle of licensing at Pop Mart advised ABC Information that “latest Labubu drops have offered out inside minutes — each on-line and in-store,” as lengthy strains wrapping round malls.
Markus Maciel, affiliate professor of toy design at Otis School, advised ABC Information that the vitality of the toy is mainly as a consequence of blind nature of which Labubu clients obtain.
“You could have lots of people on TikTok do blind field opening occasions,” he stated. “It is form of like Pokemon the place you get your playing cards, you are unsure the place you are gonna get. These blind field motions assist encourage folks to maintain wanting to gather and acquire and acquire.”
Burglars had been even stealing hundreds of {dollars} value of Labubus in 2025.
67 meme
On this Oct. 30, 2025, file photograph, 67, topped phrase of the 12 months by Dictionary.com, is displayed on a smartphone display screen in Los Angeles.
Chris Delmas/AFP by way of Getty Photographs, FILE
The largest menace of 2025? The quantity 67, apparently.
However what, precisely, does 67 imply?
In line with Dictionary.com, which chosen “67” as its 2025 Phrase of the Yr, “the time period is essentially nonsensical” however “some argue it means ‘so-so,’ or ‘possibly this, possibly that,’ particularly when paired with a hand gesture the place each palms face up and transfer alternately up and down.”
It is also pronounced “six-seven” and by no means “sixty-seven,” Dictionary.com notes.
No matter its that means or its origin, Technology Alpha – that means children born within the digital era of the 2010s via the current – have embraced it, partly as a result of it is “purposefully nonsensical and all about being in on the absurdity.”
Because the viral meme unfold all year long, companies, academics and others tried cracking down on its use.
Even Vice President JD Vance made a tongue-in-cheek name for the time period to be banned.
“Yesterday at church the Bible readings began on web page 66-67 of the missal, and my 5-year-old went completely nuts repeating ‘six seven’ like 10 instances. And now I believe we have to make this slender exception to the primary modification and ban these numbers ceaselessly,” Vance posted on X.
“The place did this even come from? I do not perceive it. After we had been children all of our viral traits a minimum of had an origin story,” he added.
In Indiana, the Tippecanoe County Sheriff’s Workplace went to at least one faculty at hand out pretend tickets to pupil caught utilizing the phrase, joking that there was a brand new regulation towards the time period.
“Breaking Information: These courageous Faculty Useful resource Officers entered an area elementary faculty to close down the utilization of the phrase “6 7.” Tickets (pretend) had been handed to as many college students utilizing the phrase as attainable,” in line with the Fb submit.
Coldplay ‘kiss cam’
A “kiss cam” second at a Coldplay live performance in Boston displaying a person and girl collectively has gone viral.
Grace Springer by way of Storyful
In what turned 16 notorious seconds of 2025, two company executives had been caught on digital camera intimately dancing collectively on a video board at a Coldplay live performance in July.
On the time, Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin might be heard joking in regards to the couple within the viral video.
“Oh, have a look at these two. All proper, come on, you are OK. Uh oh, what?” Martin stated. “Both they’re having an affair, or they’re simply very shy. I am not fairly positive.”
The viral video prompted an inner investigation of the tech firm Astronomer that led CEO Andy Byron and chief folks officer Kristin Cabot to resign.
Cabot spoke with The New York Occasions in an interview, saying she had acquired between 50 and 60 dying threats because of the viral second.
“I made a nasty determination and had a few Excessive Noons and danced and acted inappropriately with my boss. And it is not nothing,” she stated. “I took accountability and I gave up my profession for that. That is the value I selected to pay.”
Louvre theft
French cops stand subsequent to a furnishings elevator utilized by robbers to enter the Louvre Museum, on Quai Francois Mitterrand, in Paris on October 19, 2025.
Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP by way of Getty Photographs
In probably the most notorious heist in latest historical past, 4 masked thieves stole $102 million value of jewels from the Louvre’s Apollo Gallery in October, which have but to be recovered.
The theft lasted lower than seven minutes, because the bandits used a truck with an extendable ladder to chop via a window on a second-floor balcony, in line with police.
Dressed as development staff, the robbers smashed two show instances and absconded with eight items of jewellery belonging to Emperor Napoleon and his spouse earlier than fleeing on motorbikes.
When police arrived minutes later, they discovered two angle grinders, a blowtorch, gasoline, gloves, a walkie-talkie, a blanket, and a yellow vest that was apparently dropped by one of many fleeing perpetrators.
$102 million in jewels stolen from Louvre
Louvre Museum
