From memes to public mishaps, 2025 was a 12 months of nonstop viral moments.
Nevertheless, essentially 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 essentially the most well-known viral development 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 based mostly on figures from Nordic mythology.
The collectables made toy firm Pop Mart a billion-dollar enterprise, as Labubus offered for as much as thousands of dollars on the resale market, fuled by the numerous celebrities toting the keychains round in public.
Emily Brough, the top of licensing at Pop Mart instructed ABC Information that “current Labubu drops have offered out inside minutes — each on-line and in-store,” as long lines wrapping around malls.
Markus Maciel, affiliate professor of toy design at Otis Faculty, instructed ABC Information that the vitality of the toy is mainly as a result of blind nature of which Labubu prospects obtain.
“You’ve lots of people on TikTok do blind field opening occasions,” he mentioned. “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 gather and gather.”
Burglars had been even stealing thousands of dollars price of Labubus in 2025.
67 meme
On this Oct. 30, 2025, file picture, 67, topped phrase of the 12 months by Dictionary.com, is displayed on a smartphone display screen in Los Angeles.
Chris Delmas/AFP through Getty Pictures, FILE
The most important menace of 2025? The quantity 67, apparently.
However what, precisely, does 67 imply?
In keeping with Dictionary.com , which chosen “67” as its 2025 Word of the Year, “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 which means or its origin, Era Alpha – which means children born within the digital era of the 2010s by the current – have embraced it, partially 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, lecturers 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 occasions. And now I feel we have to make this slender exception to the primary modification and ban these numbers endlessly,” Vance posted on X.
“The place did this even come from? I do not perceive it. Once 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 one school handy out pretend tickets to pupil caught utilizing the phrase, joking that there was a brand new legislation 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 potential,” according to the Facebook post.
Coldplay ‘kiss cam’
A “kiss cam” second at a Coldplay live performance in Boston exhibiting a person and lady collectively has gone viral.
Grace Springer through 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 concerning the couple within the viral video.
“Oh, take a look at these two. All proper, come on, you are OK. Uh oh, what?” Martin mentioned. “Both they’re having an affair, or they’re simply very shy. I am not fairly certain.”
The viral video prompted an internal 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 Times in an interview, saying she had acquired between 50 and 60 death threats as a result of viral second.
“I made a foul choice and had a few Excessive Noons and danced and acted inappropriately with my boss. And it is not nothing,” she mentioned. “I took accountability and I gave up my profession for that. That is the worth I selected to pay.”
Louvre theft
French law enforcement officials 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 through Getty Pictures
In essentially the most notorious heist in current historical past, 4 masked thieves stole $102 million price of jewels from the Louvre’s Apollo Gallery in October, which have but to be recovered.
The theft lasted less than seven minutes, because the bandits used a truck with an extendable ladder to chop by a window on a second-floor balcony, according to police.
Dressed as development staff, the robbers smashed two show circumstances and absconded with eight pieces of jewelry 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
