what is 2025?? an early recap of the year 👀

Thanks to the monthly Trend Report Live™ event, we have some soft data about what subjects and themes have defined the year — and you can participate in the next event this Sunday!

Jul 30, 2025

The Trend Report™ is a reader-supported publication. Consider upgrading to paid to support Kyle and such writing on life and culture now.

Since February, I’ve been inviting friends, readers, and those generally interested in online and offline culture over to Bobby Aaron Solomon and my apartment for a monthly culture review. It’s called Trend Report Live™ and I wanted to take a moment to talk about it — as the next one is online and this Sunday 👀

I describe it as a game show where, as a group, we work together to build a time capsule of this moment by figuring out how important and popular items are, by mapping them on a matrix of those two metrics. We map fifteen items — five news, five pop culture, five memes — that take the tried and true weekly newsletter format and applies it to the month. Each item is debated, less about the subject itself and more as an impartial analysis, to make the case for it being very important (It will be in history books!) or not-that important (It’s akin to a TikTok trend!), more popular (Your mom and grandma know about it!) or less popular (Only industry insiders know about it!). Our assessment is neither good nor bad but just is: anywhere on the TRL matrix is valid as it is a means to help us process these times, to understand how these little moments may fit in the whole of history. At the end of the night, each of us vote on our top three happenings of the month — and the three items with the most votes are the most memorable items for the month.

Sounds fun, right? The last iteration had nearly thirty people present to debate the night away — and this Sunday, August 3 at 7P CEST / 6P GMT / 1PM EST / 10A PST, will be the first online version of the event. The time is literally inconvenient for everyone, sure, but we’ll have a good time: grab a tea or glass of wine and join in on the fun! You can RSVP here.

Another thing that has come with six months of reviewing culture is a few learnings, a detangling of themes and cycles of 2025 that we can use to study and analyze the past to get to the future. Month after month, trends rise and fall, building upon each other to create what we call the present. I wanted to share some key takeaways that have emerged, as I think they could help you all understand these times too.

To get to the learnings, we have to take a look at what we mapped each month: below are the presentations I made for each month, which were the basis for each event. Each presentation offers a deep dive of each subject which, after light debating, resulted in the winners, which we have listed below (some of which include wild cards, a la items that the group felt we missed but defined the month). Note that each presentation has presenter notes with more information on each subject and that there is both an American and EU bias — but I try to break out of them, to capture the whole of the world in 15 bites. Let’s dive in!

A lot has happened this year, no? Let’s process it all, with what people said in-the-room by reporting the general vibe month over month, all to give an early-ish recap of the year.

Israel’s genocide has captivated almost every month — but it’s impossible to tell what’s actually important versus what is a loud blip in history. Every month, I begrudgingly have had to include some awful shit that Netanyahu’s madness has birthed and every month we debate if this is just a small curve in the road of a longer, winding war or if this is where an actual turn occurs. As you can see by the results, when Israel attacked Iran (and thusly involving the US), something shifted: this was an event where we all agreed that the conflict went beyond one country repeatedly stepping on another: something changed. We’ll see what the results are of this weekend as I have a feeling we may have similar thoughts about the recent starvation news — and the international response to such news
.
Trump dominates month to month, regardless of where you’re from. A big problem we have is whether or not to include Trump items but, as I know from life outside the US, everyone in any place is talking about what the dumbass dictator is doing as much of what he does — Tariffs! Fighting with Zelensky! Breaking up with Elon! — ripples across the world, resulting in higher prices locally and greater political precarity. It’s the disaster that demands everyone’s attention — and repeatedly is a top takeaway of the month.
Everyone hates AI, which fuels its being a breakout month to month. From DeepSeek to Studio Ghibli memes, Veo3 to the kangaroo video, everyone has something to say about AI. There are a few camps that emerge: the “this is problematic but very important to advancing technology” camp, which is arguably expressed by more middle aged attendees; the “this is ruining so much of life and it’s making things really dumb even if some things have gotten easier” camp, which is usually younger; the “none of this is relevant and this is just a trend” camp, which is also more middle aged; and the “we’re doomed” camp, which covers everyone. It’s a fact of life and, despite some curiosity, attendees are all not-stoked about this development.
To that: the use of AI as a ragebait tool works. We talked about rage bait being the communication tool of our time and AI seems to make that idea so real month over month. From Studio Ghibli memes (that Trump uses to laugh at immigrants) to Duolingo pivoting to AI (and trying to make it a bit on TikTok) to the AI kangaroo and slop creators (which humiliated viewers of all ages), the medium of AI pairs so well with making people mad because it’s based upon deception in an already deceiving and exceedingly difficult times. We gotta stop that shit!
Your body is trending — and you may not realize it. Talk about health stats being a status symbol has been going around all year and TRL gave proof of this over and over again, from Kris Jenner’s facelift representing a sea change in how the body is not a site of personal development but instead a construction site while protein culture emphasizes how such a little item related to how we eat is expressing this too. It’s unsurprising that any of this is happening as we’re deep in dehumanizing times which means we too treat our bodies as if machines, as if they are not allowed to have sex or indulge in vices, as we grow deeply conservative and aspire to be machines. That sucks, no? The Rhode x e.l.f. thing and the Ashton Hall thing emphasizes this too.
We’re all thinking about the future, as many breakouts are important because they seem like crucial news to hold onto as indications of a future moment that is soon to come: LA’s ICE dramas, Mamdani’s win, the pro-Palestine censorship, Kris Jenner’s face lift, the Diddy trial, the Spanish blackout, and all things AI. We are keeping close eyes on these things because they are previews of what’s to come.
TikTok trends are only important to people on TikTok. Every month, it breaks my heart that people just don’t get or do not care about what happens on TikTok. That’s refreshing, in a way, but it’s a reminder that TikTok is a very online space despite it reshaping a lot of the world. Every month, TikTok breakouts fall in the bottom left corner, as items that are neither important nor popular in the larger scheme of life. It’s fascinating and a reminder that so much of what we experience online may seem pressing or “like life” but it’s ultimately a meaningless moment. Related and not was our trying to explain Addison Rae last month to people who were unfamiliar, that she represents the rare creator who overcame the title — and will never escape the asterisk of TikTok always next to her name.
Fashion and games are similarly siloed — but relate more to economics. There have been some huge fashion and gaming moments this year — Donatella! Anna! Switch 2! Minecraft! Fornite! — but none of these items grip the group, even if they (More than TikTok!) result in very real economic and political reshaping of the world. Think cerulean sweater: so much of what Donatella and Anna do and did trickles down to everyone. The same with a movie like Minecraft, which may have seemed dumb but is the reason why so many games are going to become movies and why everyone’s nephew wants to be a streamer. That’s huge, even if we don’t recognize its severity.
Legacy media is dead — but non-traditional media does rise above. No big movie or music moment came out on top for the month, each of them now feeling a touch above TikTok as far as import and popularity. The things that did break out as far as media were digital “shows” like Adolescence and Severance, two shows that demanded our attention and that seem to define the times. Compare that to Sinners and Snow White, which we all knew about and talked about but didn’t seem “important” in the way that the other items captured a time. Perhaps this says a lot about Hollywood, that films are no longer able to speak to our times? That they are purely escapist without anything meaningful to say? I’d say so.
Welcome to the soft power wars, as items like Labubu and Ne Zha 2 and DeepSeek and Jeff Bezos’ wedding and Shakira get at how global culture is playing out in big and small ways locally. While none of these items really caught top spots for the month, they were things that got us thinking about the world as bigger and smaller than we think — and definitely a lot more politically charged than we may realize.
America is online, meaning every month we have people from all over the world attend — America! Spain! Brazil! Russia! Ukraine! Japan! France! Portugal! The UK! Canada! China! Sweden! Australia! — and every month we agree that the majority of the internet is America’s internet. There are nuances, there are regional specifics, but the breakouts are American because it controls the internet and thus the narratives. Talk about a soft power win which, to the point of Labubu, shows how such expressions of culture can be used by others. But?
The world is bigger and smaller than we think, as it often seems like America and EU items are “what’s defining this moment” but it very clearly is untrue as others from around the world have graciously put us in check, to say that these items are meaningful but we may be biased by the loudest voices in the room. Like any city within a state, countries within the world are the same: they may seem to be “the biggest” when ultimately they’re just the most talkative. That doesn’t mean we live in a monolith, which again is reflected by who we have selected as our winners month to month.

Phew! That was a lot — but that’s half the year, for you. What do you think of all this? Share in the comments and I hope to see you Sunday at 7P CEST / 6P GMT / 1PM EST / 10A PST: RSVP here!

Also? If you’re into this and want a similar event or thinking for your company, let me know and we can get something going. Send me a note below!

Discussion about this post

Ready for more?

what is 2025?? an early recap of the year 👀

Thanks to the monthly Trend Report Live™ event, we have some soft data about what subjects and themes have defined the year — and you can participate in the next event this Sunday!

→ February TRL

→ March TRL

→ April TRL

→ May TRL

→ June TRL

Discussion about this post

Ready for more?