Coldplay kiss-cam, Sydney Sweeney, Louvre Heist, West End Girl: A complete list of 2025’s most viral moments

We used to have TV jingles stuck in our heads, but now viral moments are what earworms are made of.

Though the internet has us all packed up in mini compartments defined by our interests, there are some online trends that have poked through the echo chambers and made it to everyone’s For You page.

Before you hit refresh on your feed going into the new year, take a look back at the most viral moments of 2025.

Katy Perry in space

Katy Perry has done a lot of things most of us haven’t, and this year she added suborbital travel to that list. After her last album, Lifetimes, did anything but take off, Perry herself skyrocketed - literally. She joined the all-female Blue Origin space trip in April, spending 11 minutes in flight before falling to her knees and kissing the Earth upon her return.

Everything about this space trip was meme-able, but the image of Perry floating while

holding a daisy flower, representing her daughter, did numbers on social media. Much like her recent album’s lead song Woman’s World, the Blue Origin trip was hit with criticism for being a tone deaf and tokenistic way to champion feminism.

Sydney Sweeney jeans controversy

Jeans and genes. A homophone that should perhaps be put out to pasture by denim companies. Sydney Sweeney’s American Eagle campaign went viral for all the wrong reasons after the ad was accused of promoting eugenics with its tagline “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans”.

Despite having ample opportunity to address the public’s outcry, the Euphoria star remained silent even when served an easy question in the world’s softest interview with GQ. She finally got some words out in an interview with People where she said the backlash was “unexpected” and that she had realised her silence had “only widened the divide, not closed it”.

“I did it because I love the jeans and love the brand. I don’t support the views some people chose to connect to the campaign. Many have assigned motives and labels to me that just aren’t true.”

Labubu blind-box craze

If there is one word everyone learned this year it was Labubu. When the blind-box craze landed in Australia, Labubus sky-rocketed in popularity and social media users rushed to get their hands on their very own scary looking bag charm. Created by Hong-Kong artist Kasing Lung, the ugly-cute plushies come in countless varieties, encouraging purchasers to keep buying blind boxes until they get their desired colourway.

Unboxing videos took off online, and Labubus featured heavily in styling videos with fashion influencers matching them to their outfits, adding them to their bags and buying mini-clothing items for them. Though oversaturated now, the power of Labubu hasn’t died off; Uniqlo is currently selling a line of merchandise inspired by the monster purse companion.

Having a boyfriend became embarrassing

This year women said bye to the days of wanting a boyfriend, and hello to a Cher-esque “ugh, as if” attitude to dating. A Vogue article titled “Is having a boyfriend embarrassing now?” analysed the trend of young women opting out of dating men, or shying away from putting their boyfriends all over social media. Starting sentences with “my boyfriend” has arguably become uncool, while being single, successful and divorced from the male gaze is so in (though trad-wife culture has reared its head at this).

Some men have been quick to play the victim card, accusing young women of perpetuating attitudes which contribute to the male loneliness epidemic. Women have been quick to point out that they are under no obligation to date men if they don’t want to. In videos ranging from essays to memes, women called out incel culture, rejecting men who blame them for patriarchal problems while sitting at a computer and continuing to insist feminism is some kind of villain in a cape.

Coldplay kiss-cam scandal

Kiss-cams have created scores of viral moments, from proposals to awkward non-couple moments, but this year’s duck and run Coldplay clip takes the cake. Andy Byron, the now former Astronomer CEO was caught kissing the company’s HR Chief Kristin Cabot. The clip shows the pair’s shock before Ms Cabot covers her face and turns her back to the camera while Mr Byron ducks out of view.

Rumours of a cheating scandal were everywhere and the footage dominated news cycles around the world. As Astronomer was suffering from both a PR dream and disaster, Gwyneth Paltrow, the ex of Coldplay’s lead singer Chris Martin, stepped up as the tech company’s temporary spokesperson in a second viral video.

Louvre heist

Everyone used to have a favourite heist movie, but nothing can beat a real-life shabby ladder robbery at Europe’s most famous museum. The absurdity of the Louvre heist garnered global attention after thieves disguised as construction workers managed to lift eight pieces from the French Crown Jewels collection on October 19. They made their getaway down a retractable ladder.

Video footage of their escape shocked the world, as did a photo of the “Louvre heist detective” - who was really just a 15-year-old boy dressed in vintage clothes at the scene. A total of eight people have been arrested in connection stolen jewels which are worth about $157 million and are still yet to be found.

Albanese saying 6-7

The 6-7 trend was so viral even our Prime Minister took a stab at it. Though the numbers mean nothing, Anthony Albanese put them to good use at a press conference in Perth on November 18 while taking aim at the Coalition over energy policy.

“If you go into a local school here, primary school, you’ll have local kids stand up and they’ll say, ‘six-seven, six-seven,’” Mr Albanese said.

“Well, six-seven, what does it mean? It means nothing. A bit like the pamphlet that they put out.”

KPop Demon Hunters

Not even Netflix could have predicted the global phenomenon that KPop Demon Hunters started with their fictional girl band HUNTRIX and rival group Saja Boys. The songs Golden, Soda Pop and Your Idol are still everywhere six months after the film’s streaming release. Golden made it to the number one spot on the Billboard Hot 100 while the entire album has had staying power on Spotify’s daily global chart. Halloween was also marked by countless young children running around dressed as Rumi, Zoey and Mira.

West End Girl

Couples who do Open Door house tours with Architectural Digest together, stay together. Right? Wrong. Lily Allen’s public excoriation of Stranger Things star David Harbour in her album West End Girl set social media alight. Fans were captivated by Allen’s account of the end of the couple’s marriage and revelations about infidelity and opening up the relationship. Her song Madeline gained extra attention over its apparent connection to the woman Allen says Harbour cheated on her with.

Taylor Swift’s engagement

After closing The Eras Tour at the end of 2024, Taylor Swift wasted no time churning out another album and breaking the internet with her engagement to NFL star Travis Kelce. She sent her fans into a spiral when she posted engagement photos captioned with “your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married”. Swift had announced her album The Life of a Showgirl just weeks before, revealing the cover on Kelce’s podcast New Heights.

Billie Eilish calls out billionaires

Right before Halloween Billie Eilish gave billionaires a scare in a speech calling out unethical excessive wealth. While accepting the music innovator award at the WSJ magazine awards on October 29, Eilish turned her attention to billionaires as a whole - despite the fact Mark Zuckerberg, who has a net worth of $257 billion, was in the audience.

“If you’re a billionaire, why are you a billionaire?” Eilish said. “If you have money, it would be great to use it for good things, maybe give it to some people that need it,” she said. As the clip made the rounds online many were quick to support Eilish’s message and recognise her pledge to donate about $21 million made from her Hit Me Hard And Soft tour to charity. Others criticised her “attack on capitalism”.

The name is Mamdani

In the scheme of mayors who are important, New York’s is up there, but Zohran Mamdani’s electoral campaign came with unprecedented global commentary. Clips of him campaigning went viral in the lead up to the big day, as did condemnation from Donald Trump, though the US President did appear to more lax when a victorious Mamdani visited the Oval Office.

In becoming the first Muslim mayor of NYC, Mamdani vowed to address the city’s high cost of living with his democratic socialist policies including freezing rent and making buses free. One of the most viral moments was a clip of Mamdani spelling out his name mid-debate with Andrew Cuomo, who ran against him as Trump’s preferred candidate (and failed spectacularly). A remix of this with Gwen Stefani’s Hollaback Girl also went viral online: “The name is Mamdani, M-A-M-D-A-N-I”.

Charlie Kirk

The graphic video of Charlie Kirk’s death shocked the world and sparked a global conversation about the relationship between the right to free political speech and gun violence. Known as a MAGA supporting conservative, Kirk had a significant social media presence before the shooting. He toured university campuses and engaged in debates with students where he put forward right wing arguments on abortion, LGBTQIA+ rights, gun control and diversity.

After his death, commentators around the world rushed to condemn political violence, trumpeting Kirk’s own message that people should be allowed to say outrageous things. For Christian nationalists, Kirk has since become a martyr. As a result, any criticism of the views which he called “traditional”, but which uphold harmful misogynistic and racist ideas, have been attacked as not only insensitive to his death but disrespectful to his memory.

The sheer violence of his death had a significant impact on those who saw the video, especially young children. When it was first shared, many thought it was AI.

Bird theory

Oh yay, 2025 gifted us with another social media trend we can use to measure the success of relationships. Bird theory went viral as a test to see how much your partner cares about you. One person in the relationship tells the other they “saw a bird today”. How the other person responds is said to indicate how interested they are in your experiences.

Saying you saw a bird is a pretty bland, yet broad remark. If your partner asks about what you saw, where you saw it and why you are telling them about it, then it indicates they are attentive and still curious about you. Based on American psychologist Dr John Gottam’s work, if the partner dismisses the observation this can indicate an unhealthy relationship.

Nicki Minaj stiletto challenge

What is a year of trends without one that could cause life altering injury. Set to the tune of Nicki Minaj’s 2013 song High School featuring Lil Wayne, the stiletto challenge asks participants to put their tallest shoes on, crouch in a cross-legged squat while balancing on top of an object of their choice.

Clips of people attempting this feat went viral, and one influencer copped a significant injury when she fell off her kitchen counter top after a flimsy saucepan podium collapsed in on itself.