12 viral and trending moments of 2025: What's your top pick?

From AI nostalgia filters to spaceflight stunts, toy obsessions, and accidental scandals, 2025 has become a year defined by the stories we shared — and the ones that unexpectedly consumed the internet.

A Studio Ghibli–style AI selfie trend turned feeds into animated dreamscapes, while Katy Perry’s all-female space mission set a new cultural milestone. 

Pop Mart’s Labubu dolls became the year’s hottest collectible, Coldplay sparked a viral “kiss cam” fiasco, and TikTok even revived apocalyptic prophecy with #RaptureTok. 

Major real-world drama blended with meme culture—from a Louvre crown-jewel heist to a bizarre “100 men vs 1 gorilla” debate. 

Brands, celebrities, and even haunted dolls joined the frenzy, proving once again: in 2025, anything can go viral.

#1. Studio Ghibli AI filter

OpenAI's ChatGPT update sparked global selfies, memes in Ghibli style. The Studio Ghibli AI filter became a hit due to a combination of its highly nostalgic and emotionally resonant art style, extreme accessibility through popular AI tools, and the inherent shareability of transforming personal photos into the whimsical Ghibli aesthetic. People enjoyed sharing their "Ghibli-fied" selfies, pets, and landscapes, which further fueled the trend's exponential growth.

#2. Katy Perry all-female spaceflight

Blue Origin's NS-31 mission launched into space on April 14, 2025 with an all-female crew. The all-female crew consisted of: Katy Perry, Lauren Sánchez, Gayle King, Aisha Bowe, Amanda Nguyen and Kerianne Flynn. Experience: The crew spent about 10 minutes in space, reaching an altitude of 107 km (66 miles).

Perry saw the flight as a journey and a way to inspire her daughter and other girls. King described the experience as surprisingly "calming and peaceful" and a reminder to "do better, be better".

Sanchez called the experience "profound" and said it gave her an urge to "protect this planet". Nguyen noted it was a dream come true and an opportunity to honour her past self. 

#3. Labubu toy craze

Labubu dolls — those wide-eyed, mischievous, slightly creepy yet irresistibly adorable figures — have morphed from indie art toys into global status symbols, sparking long queues, viral auctions, and a subculture of devoted “Labubu hunters.”

TikTok creators began documenting their “blind-box pulls” and reaction videos. Rare Labubus became the new lottery tickets. Pop Mart’s monster character exploded, with influencers like @vanillamace unboxing "Christmas tree" fails (15M views).

The design tapped into a unique aesthetic: a blend of spooky folklore, childlike whimsy, and deliberate imperfections that made each figure feel handmade and alive. What began as a niche designer toy has turned into one of the most feverish pop-culture frenzies of 2025. 

#4. Coldplay “kiss cam” fail

During a July 2025 concert, Coldplay frontman Chris Martin jokingly commented on a couple's awkward reaction to being featured on the jumbotron, quipping, "'Either they're having an affair or they're just very shy'". The moment went viral and led to significant real-world consequences for the couple, who were later identified as a tech CEO and a colleague. It led to resignations/divorce memes.

#5. RaptureTokrophecy

The prediction that the Rapture would occur on September 23 or 24, 2025, was made by South African preacher Joshua Mhlakela and gained significant traction on TikTok under the hashtag #RaptureTok. The date has since passed without the event materializing, and the prediction has been widely dismissed by religious scholars and mainstream Christian teachings. 

#6. Louvre crown jewels heist

The Louvre Museum in Paris was closed after thieves stole eight royal artefacts in broad daylight, worth an estimated €88M jewels, in 8 minutes. Security footage shows three men fleeing with priceless jewels, including items belonging to Napoleon and Empress Eugenie, in under 10 minutes.

CCTV footage of thieves inside the Louvre, the world-famous museum, showed them looting Napoleon’s jewels in front of visitors. Security cameras captured one of the suspects, dressed in construction gear, cutting through a glass display case while visitors walked nearby. The thieves used a basket lift to reach the museum’s facade, forced a window, smashed display cases, and escaped on a motorcycle.

#7. 100 Men vs 1 Gorilla debate

"1 Gorilla", also known as “100 Guys vs. 1 Gorilla”, refers to a viral debate about who would win in a fight to the death, 100 men or one gorilla. The concept went viral on TikTok and spread to Twitter / X and Reddit in late April 2025. Some posted simulations that overwhelmingly showed the gorilla defeating the 100 men. Reddit tweet reignited vs silverback gorilla; TikTok/YouTube went wild with endless memes. 

#8. American Eagle Sydney Sweeney ad

The American Eagle jeans ad featuring Sydney Sweeney went viral due to a controversial wordplay where Sweeney says, "My jeans are blue", a pun, after discussing her genes, which some viewers interpreted as a potentially racist reference to eugenics or even Nazi propaganda. Others found the ad clever, while Sweeney's representatives and the brand defended it, stating it was about her jeans and her story. The ad also went viral because of Sweeney's large social media following and the brand's intentionally provocative advertising strategy. Donald Trump and Ted Cruz defended the ad.

#9. Gap denim dance campaign

Gap's "Better in Denim" dance campaign went viral due to a strategic blend of nostalgia, youth culture, and social media engagement. The campaign, featuring the global girl group Katseye, has amassed hundreds of millions of views in total. The "Better in Denim" campaign, launched in August 2025, leveraged elements like Y2K nostalgia and strategic casting to achieve massive engagement. 400M views, 8B impressions; #1 TikTok search boosts sales 4% amid tariffs.

#10. Anglerfish sun quest story

It's a heartwarming tale of deep-sea fish seeking light inspires art/tattoos. The "Anglerfish sun quest story" is a viral internet narrative, largely on social media platforms like TikTok, born from a rare scientific event in February 2025 where a deep-sea black seadevil anglerfish was filmed near the ocean's surface off the coast of Tenerife.

The story is a poetic, emotional metaphor created by online users, not a scientific or real-life quest. The popular interpretation is that the fish, after a lifetime in the darkness of the abyss, made a final, brave journey to see the sunlight before it died.

People viewed this as a powerful symbol of hope, ambition, and the pursuit of an unattainable beauty, or finding one's own inner light.

The fish died shortly after the sighting.

#11. Haunted doll Annabelle chaos

It is linked to the Louisiana jailbreak/fire, leading to the explosion of conspiracy theories. The recent “chaos” stems from the doll being taken on a rare, limited US tour. This tour generated significant media and social media attention, including internet rumours that the doll had gone missing.

Conspiracy theorists and local lore linked the doll's presence at an event in New Orleans to several unrelated, bizarre local incidents that happened around the same time: A mysterious fire at the historic Nottoway Resort plantation; a jailbreak where several inmates escaped from a nearby prison; the sudden, non-suspicious death of one of the doll's handlers, paranormal investigator Dan Rivera, while on tour in July 2025.

The doll's owner, Tony Spera has consistently confirmed the doll was safe, heavily protected, and never out of his sight, dismissing the rumours of escape and chaos as coincidence and internet frenzy. 

#12. Taylor Swift’s Opalite dance craze

Taylor Swift's "Opalite" (released October 3, 2025) ignited a global TikTok dance trend with smooth arm gestures and flowing moves, exploding in Asia. Group performances emerged amid social challenges. Tutorials by Miko Yanson/Ana Bensig hit 1M+ views. On YouTube, dance workouts/remixes drew hundreds of thousands of views. Meanwhile, Japan Airlines crew and Chinese classes joined the craze; Reddit upvotes predict chart-topper as reels are flooded globally. Reddit hails Opalite’s #1 potential, like "Shake It Off."