The biggest viral moments of 2025

When you think back over 2025 what comes to mind? A new Pope? The first signs of a peace deal in Gaza? The celebrity traitors? All valid contenders. But here are our choices of the most meme-orable, eye-rolling, jaw-dropping and head-scratching moments of the year.

Coldplay kiss cam

The moment of the year unravelled on that fateful mid-July day at a Coldplay concert in Foxborough, Massachusetts. Andy Byron, then CEO of tech company Astronomer, and the company’s Chief People Officer Kristin Cabot broke away from a cosy embrace and ducked for cover to avoid being caught on kiss cam. A ripple of gasps in the audience ensued. Then Chris Martin delivered the iconic line: “Oh, what…either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy.” Turns out, the latter was a little generous.

To add to the madness, Astronomer then hired Martin’s ex-wife Gwyneth Paltrow to be a “temporary spokesperson” and the face of a new, tongue-in-cheek advertisement released to ride the publicity wave. Byron and Cabot have both since left the company. The latest Coldplay singles?

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Labubu craze

These dolls were everywhere. First seen swinging from the bag of South Korean Blackpink band member Lalisa Manobal – known as “Lisa” – they were soon adopted by music icons Rihanna and Dua Lipa, and sporting greats Sir David Beckham and Naomi Osaka. “Après Lalisa, la delulu”, said essayist Mireille Silcoff in The New York Times. The “junky-looking fuzzy toy” spiralled into a “weird totem of adult fashion juvenilia”, as both adults and children queued for hours to get their hands on the newest colour or style.

You couldn’t just buy them in shops, you had to wait until the next “drop”, where crowds would break into a frenzy. The toys took a darker turn as the year wore on. The counterfeit market has caught up, with 236,000 Labubu dolls seized at UK borders alone, raising health and safety concerns. Such was the success of the Labubu boom, there are whispers circulating of a film deal, with Sony reportedly securing the rights, said The Hollywood Reporter. The craze continues.

Blue Origin space mission

The space race took a strange turn this year. The 20th-century rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union is firmly in the rearview mirror. In April, a star-studded crew – including singer Katy Perry and CBS presenter Gayle King – embarked on an 11-minute space mission, rising more than 100km above the Earth. The Blue Origin mission was funded by Amazon boss Jeff Bezos, whose wife Lauren Sánchez was also on board. Upon landing, Sánchez told reporters that “I looked out of the window and we got to see the Moon”. Earth-shattering stuff.

Perry, who performed Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” during the flight, said she felt like a “human piñata” for the online abuse she received after the flight. The crew were slammed for these flights which were described as “essentially just joyrides for the super-rich”.

Sydney Sweeney’s jeans

Actor Sydney Sweeney appeared in an advert for jeans company American Eagle over the summer, under the tagline “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans”. Wordplay-gone-wrong or a marketing epiphany? The pun on genes sparked online outrage, with many criticising the supposed idealisation of her skin colour and physique, even “flirting with eugenic imagery”, said Vanity Fair. As usual, sadly, any publicity was good publicity.

Even the president weighed in on the controversy, after he found out she was affiliated to the Republican Party. “She’s a registered Republican? Oh, now I love her ad,” said Donald Trump. “If Sydney Sweeney is a registered Republican, I think her ad is fantastic.”

In September, shares in American Eagle Outfitters “jumped” more than 25% following Sweeney’s involvement, said the FT. Her signature jeans had sold out within a week of launch, the company’s executives said. Another commercial success, but at what cost? $89.95 (£66.58) per pair.

Louvre robbery

Heists are usually seen only in films, but sometimes, life imitates art. October’s heist at the world’s most famous museum was a plotline straight out of “Ocean’s 11” or “The Thomas Crown Affair”.

Armed with a vehicle-mounted mechanical lift, four suspects arrived at 9:30am, shortly after the Louvre opened to visitors. They raised the lift to the first floor, cut through the glass, and made off with around £76 million of loot. To add insult to injury, in November, it was revealed that a 2018 security audit conducted for the museum identified the balcony that was used as a weak point, warning that it could be accessed by a freight elevator, said Le Monde. Déjà vu?

In late November, the Paris Prosecutor’s office confirmed that the fourth and final suspect for the crime had been arrested. The jewellery haul, however, remains at large – if you needed another reason to visit Paris.