2025's Biggest Moments - According to Masala

2025 kept us entertained, confused, emotional, and extremely online. From blockbuster chaos to meme-worthy trends and history-making headlines, here’s your ultimate scroll through the year that never stopped serving.

• KPop Demon Hunters (2025) came, slayed, and conquered on Netflix, breaking records as the streaming platform’s most viewed movie of all time. It also landed the number one spot on the Billboard Hot 100 for eight consecutive weeks. EJAE (singing voice of Rumi) received a Grammy nomination.

• Saiyaara (2025) became the year’s biggest runaway sleeper hit with two newcomers, throwing it back to 90s-era romance melodramas and collecting USD 65 million worldwide.

•This year marked the release of the third and final season of Amazon Prime Video’s The Summer I Turned Pretty (2022), which broke the internet and enraged all viewers, whether they were team Jere Bear or Connie Baby. Fans were left perplexed at Belly’s linguistic capabilities and applauded her plan to own the Cousins’ beach home.

• In 2025, the Gallagher brothers finally squashed the beef and came together for a much-anticipated Oasis reunion tour. Here’s to practicing what you preach: don’t look back in anger.

• Everyone knows you don’t mix business with pleasure. These two lovebirds weren’t CCed on the memo. The former CEO and CPO of data company Astronomer were seen locking lips at Coldplay’s show in the Big Apple, accidentally exposing their affair on the Jumbotron.

• K-Dot performed at the Super Bowl LIX halftime show in New Orleans, headlining for the first time after previously appearing in the 2022 performance. In a longstanding beef with Drake, Kendrick Lamar took centre stage and relentlessly tripled down on his rivals with countless double entendres. This performance was everything but minorrrr.

• Fresh off The Eras Tour, Taylor Swift returned to the studio for her lucky 13th studio album, dubbed The Life of a Showgirl, her most polarising release to date. As per her usual rollouts, TLOASG broke numerous records but also stirred up much discourse online, leaving some Swifties to ponder whether it was better to just do it with a broken heart.

• Lady Gaga is back! Mother Monster released her seventh studio album, Mayhem, this year, bringing in all the dance and artistic elements we so missed.

• Ed Sheeran has been known to bring several artists on stage with him, prime examples being Diljit Dosanjh and Arijit Singh, but he can take the crown as our favourite English pakoda after releasing “Sapphire”, which features an entire verse in Hindi sung by Arijit.

• Earlier this year, on 19 January, the President of the United States had all the TikTok influencers and doom-scrollers crashing out, with a public service announcement on the multimedia application for a nationwide ban. Luckily, the ban only lasted twelve hours, saving the jobs of our favourite American TikTokers.

• Apple launched their latest innovation to their line of iPhones with the introduction of the iPhone Air, their thinnest and sleekest drop to date. With a thickness of only 5.64 mm, this phone is light as air but heavy on the specs.

• After much anticipation, Nintendo finally released the Nintendo Switch 2, with a larger display, higher storage capacity, integrated game chat, webcam compatibility, and local GameShare screen sharing, making the device more ideal than ever for a game sesh with the bunch.

• AI is surely and definitely here to stay. In February of this year, more than 100 countries sent their best and brightest to the AI Action Summit in Paris to invest a hefty sum into their AI sectors. These countries pledged their allegiance to creating safe, sustainable, and ethical means of using artificial intelligence. Interestingly enough, the US and UK refused to sign.

• In September, Google DeepMind (the team behind Gemini) reached a major milestone as the first AI model to win a gold medal at the International Programming Contest (ICPC) for solving a real-world duct-network problem faster than humans.

• Amazon continues to pioneer and push boundaries with its quantum computing chip, codename Ocelot, which is designed to take on several quantum tasks and keep running despite faults within the system. This aims to drastically reduce quantum error-correction costs. Each step brings us closer and closer to making the world of science fiction a reality.

• World No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz slugged it out with Jannik Sinner in a gruelling five-hour-29-minute final match—the longest final in Roland Garros history. With one of the greatest comebacks in tennis, the 2025 French Open is now Carlos’ fifth Grand Slam at just 22 years old.

• Habibi, come to Dubai! And witness India’s Men’s National Cricket Team hoist the championship trophy at the 17th edition of the Asia Cup. The 2025 champs defeated arch-rivals Pakistan by 5 wickets at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium this past September. India now has a record-extending 9th Asia Cup title.

• Chak de! India! For the first time in the nation’s history, Team India is the world champion at the 2025 ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup. Winning by an emphatic 52 runs against South Africa, the ladies in blue took part in a final that garnered 92 million viewers on CTV, equalling the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024 final.

• The Maha Kumbh Mela was held at Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh, from 13 January to 26 February this year, a Hindu pilgrimage celebrated every 144 years that marks a full orbital revolution of Jupiter around the Sun. This year’s festivities brought in 660 million participants, all coming together to celebrate and bask in the auspicious occasion.

• Starting in February this year, President Trump announced a surge in global tariffs, encouraging people all over the world to shop locally.

• In March, Myanmar and Thailand experienced an earthquake and a cluster of aftershocks affecting city infrastructures and citizens across the nations. Due to this incident, disaster planning has been at the forefront of many minds.

• The name is Mamdani, M-A-M-D-A-N-I. New York City held its 2025 mayoral election with Zohran Mamdani winning votes as the youngest mayor since 1892. His win also marked the first time New York gained a mayor of Indian and Muslim descent.

• A real-life conclave took place earlier this year as priests of several denominations all cloistered together in Vatican City to decide who would don the robes and responsibilities as the new pope. The new pope, after the passing of Pope Francis, seems to be continuing his legacy of bringing progressive ideals to the Catholic faith.

• The year 2000 called, they thought measles was dealt with. Health authorities were shocked to see the sudden resurgence of a very treatable disease in 2025.

• Everybody loves a good heist, but who could imagine one taking place in broad daylight, let alone at one of the world’s most prestigious museums in the era of advanced tech security? In October of this year, a gang of four Parisian robbers dressed up as construction workers to steal roughly EUR 88 million worth of jewels, marking the first art theft at The Louvre since 1998. Someone call up Tintin and Detective Clouseau.

• This year saw a surge in direct flights from India to various locations in the Land of Smiles, namely via Thai VietJet Air and Thai Lion Air. Planning a getaway onto sandy shores? IndiGo Airlines has announced a direct flight from New Delhi to Krabi, and Akasa Air advertised their direct flights from Mumbai to Phuket, making jetsetting to Thailand’s azure waters easier than ever.

• This April, Katy Perry, Gayle King, and Lauren Sánchez, along with several other prominent women, brought stardom to outer space with an 11-minute ride to the cosmos aboard Jeff Bezos’ rocket, Blue Origin. This joyride stirred controversy online, with debate over whether the trip was a step towards innovation or a full-blown billionaire spectacle.

• Veena Praveenar Singh made history as the first Thai-Indian to win the title of Miss Universe Thailand 2025. She represented Thailand at the Miss Universe 2025 competition, securing the title of first runner-up.

• In June, news broke that the fashion industry’s bobbed icon, Anna Wintour, was stepping down as Editor-in-Chief of American Vogue after a 34-year tenure. Her curation, taste, and voice will forever remain haute couture as her torch and legacy are passed to Chloé Malle.

• Good jeans or poor media literacy? After American Eagle’s controversial campaign starring blonde bombshell Sydney Sweeney brought into question her “good genes,” GAP released their own denim campaign starring the members of global girl group KATSEYE, gaining much praise for their all-inclusive advertisement and fun choreography, setting the brand back again on the trendy map.

• Miss World 2025, held in Hyderabad, crowned Suchata Chuangsri of Thailand as winner, marking history as Thailand’s first Miss World.

• Does anyone else remember when the furry little monsters took over our shopping malls, streets, and even bags? Labubus, with their pointy ears and funny-looking teeth, were all the rage. There were lines that wrapped around the entirety of centralwOrld when a new line of Labubus dropped at POPMART. But like all trends, this one too faded.

• The line “Nothing beats a Jet2 holiday” was clipped, remixed, and suddenly everywhere, soundtracking everything from hangover mornings to chaotic girl trips. What began as Jet2’s marketing slogan turned into a full-blown cultural meme—a tongue-in-cheek mantra for people who secretly love a low-effort escape.

• Why are all your favourite male influencers, and even your pals, suddenly journaling at sunrise and filming themselves in cold plunges? The performative man craze began as a nod to emotional growth, but somewhere between the stoic captions, it lost the plot. Now everyone’s clocked that these “deep” hobbies are more for show than soul, and the internet can’t stop roasting them for it.