If there’s one thing to say about life online in 2025, it’s that our brains are certified rotten. We listened to an airline ad for months on end, Ghibli-fied ourselves, and willingly (or unwillingly) consumed AI-generated slop. But 2025 was also the year Banu Mushtaq’s Heart Lamp became the first Kannada book to win the International Booker Prize, we elected our first ever—okay, not ours, New York’s first ever—Indian-origin Muslim mayor, and a new generation was born.
We all became obsessed with matcha—the drink that was adopted as a symbol for cotton-tote-lugging, feminist-literature-reading performative males; stood in line at the hot new super-small restaurant on the block because online booking is just so overrated; and added ‘oner’ to our cinematic vocabulary (thanks, auteurs of Adolescence and The Studio!).
This was also the year a nepo baby made a triumphant Bollywood debut; a 19th-century Chinese tile-based game infiltrated the kitty party; Katy Perry went to space (and started dating Justin Trudeau???); and an impish toy achieved the kind of world domination dictators could only dream of. A lot of these phenomena were not on our 2025 bingo cards, but oh well.
Below, check out The Nod’s list of the year’s good, bad, and viral moments. Through this month we’ll bring to you stories on everything that held our attention in 2025.
1. See you at mahjong
Mahjong Karva Chauth. Mahjong Diwali brunches. Mahjong-and-macarons high tea. Anywhere you can spot monogrammed bags, carefully arranged blowouts, and designer kaftans, you’re sure to find a set of mahjong tiles not far away.
2. We ❤️ ‘Heart Lamp’
It’s always exciting to discover sparkling translated fiction. This year, the International Booker Prize went to author Banu Mushtaq and translator Deepa Bhasthi for Heart Lamp, a collection of 12 short stories originally written in Kannada. The book not just became the first short story collection to win the Prize, it was also the first Kannada book to do so. While Mushtaq’s stories deftly explore the lives of women in southern India and their joys, sorrows, disdain, and rage, Bhasthi’s translation is a masterclass in nuance and texture.
3. The year of Kalyani Priyadarshan
On August 28, when Lokah released in theatres across India, it was instantly declared a phenomenon. The first Indian female superhero movie was soon to become the highest-grossing film in Malayalam movie history. These days, through its OTT release, it continues to bring in newer fans from non-Malayali audiences. Needless to say, things have not been the same for its leading lady. Eight years in the making, Kalyani Priyadarshan is now an overnight star.
4. Itsy-bitsy dining rooms had us queuing
A curious phenomenon has been sweeping the dining landscape this year: the XS eatery. Some of the buzziest tables across the country—Naru Noodle Bar, Navu, and Wine in Progress in Bengaluru, Papa’s and Khao Man Gai in Mumbai, Zuru Zuru in Delhi and Rannaghor in Kolkata—seat no more than 20 people and probably measure the wingspan of the Vitruvian man. The chefs enjoy these seriously tiny restaurants for the control and creativity they offer, diners love the intimacy and bragging rights.
5. HYROX this, HYROX that
No one seems to know exactly what HYROX is, including Google, who thinks it’s a portmanteau for hybrid rockstar (it’s not). But that didn’t stop droves of impossibly sculpted humans from putting themselves through the most punishing hour of their lives. The spectators (online and offline) weren’t complaining, though.
6. The hottest band of the year was fictional
The biggest musical phenomenon of the year? Not Rosalia. Not Bad Bunny. Not Tate McRae or Lady Gaga. Not even…Taylor Swift. It was a fictional band called HUNTR/X, the protagonists of the animated Netflix film K-Pop Demon Hunters. While the film released in June, the single ‘Golden’ continues to top the Billboard music charts and, combined with tracks like ‘Idol’ and ‘Soda Pop’, is giving parents world over peak Frozen-era ‘Let It Go’ déjà vu. We’re all living under their honmoon.
7. So much matcha
India’s Gen Z spent the year in a full-blown matcha chokehold. One moment it was a niche import, the next it was in our desserts, our beauty shelves, and half the cups on Instagram. Everywhere you turned, someone was whisking, sipping or posing with something green. The obsession was real and it was very, very photogenic.
8. Goodbye, retirement fund. Hello, Green Day
This was the year India went full concert-core. People city-hopped, blew through savings, and treated getting a Coldplay ticket like a basic human right. The craziness that played out over Coldplay concert tickets remains a pivotal moment in the timeline of live musical acts in India (and of course proved meme gold). Elder millennials dipped into their savings to watch Axl Rose trip on stage mid ‘Sweet Child O Mine’. Elsewhere, Green Day and Enrique Iglesias fans paid eye-popping prices and flocked to the concert grounds to sing out loud to their favourite anthems. FOMO may have been a very serious driver, but it seemed concert culture officially became our love language and our financial kryptonite.
9. Oxford rage baits us with the Word of the Year
Oxford has officially crowned “rage bait” the word of the year, which feels fair considering half the internet now exists just to annoy us into clicking. It basically means posts designed to make you furious enough to comment, share or start a mini war in the replies. Think headlines like “Pineapple on biryani is the future” and you get the vibe.
10. Gen Beta is born
Born into a world riddled with climate catastrophe and the uncertainty of the AI revolution, we welcomed Earth’s newest inhabitants this year: Gen Beta. But with them they seem to have brought a laundry list of hopes and fears for their parents.
11. The women hit it out of the park
It was during the semi-final of the ICC Women’s World Cup against South Africa that suddenly everyone in India woke up to the very real possibility that the coveted trophy may be coming home. In the final, Harmanpreet Kaur and Co. met our suddenly soaring hopes, giving us our proudest cricketing moment since Kapil’s Devils’ 1983 win.
12. Let them eat cocktails
Like it or not, modern cocktails are tasting more and more like food. In New York, INDN’s superpower is making a drink that will make you think of palak paneer and butter chicken. Fat-washing is old news. This year, did you even go to a cocktail bar if you haven’t tried a choriz-washed whisky or a martini that tasted like pizza? Food-flavoured drinks are here, and there is no escaping them.
13. The four-part mini-series everyone binge-watched
There was a lot going on on TV: The Pitt made us anxious, The Last of Us left us gobsmacked, The Studio impressed us with its cameos, The White Lotus in Thailand didn’t land too well and Stranger Things announced its very near end. But the one show we all seemed to talk about was the single-shot mastery of a terrifying tale about a 13-year-old boy who murdered a female classmate, baited by social media. Parents, child-free people, and schoolgoing children couldn’t help but finish Adolescence in one long binge.
14. Ahaan Panday gets theatres sobbing
Ahaan Panday had everyone going full googly-eyed this year. Blame his demure, softboi persona off-screen and that very “I can fix him” aura he unleashed as Krish Kapoor in Saiyaara. One film in and he’s already the internet’s favourite mystery: cue Reddit threads, love-life conspiracy theories, and fans frantically Googling “how tall is Ahaan Panday really?”. Now we’re all just manifesting his next big-screen appearance like our lives depend on it.
15. Lessons from Prada-gate
Kolhapuris at Prada, a giant Snakes & Ladders board game by Studio Mumbai at Louis Vuitton, dhoti drapes at Dries Van Noten… fashion has always been inspired by India, but this year the menswear collections in particular drew from the subcontinent, both directly and indirectly, and you better believe the Internet took notice.
16. Artists against AI
Just last night, Frankenstein’s Guillermo del Toro had an honorary mention at the Gotham Awards: “Fuck AI” he said, while praising the humans that worked on his film. Anti-AI sentiments are de rigueur among creatives right now, with creatives around the world finally pushing back. Vince Gilligan, whose Apple TV show Pluribus comes with a “made by humans” disclaimer, calls it “the world’s most expensive and energy-intensive plagiarism machine”. The message is simple: the art stays human, thank you very much.
17. The year of memes
From Coldplay’s jumbotron fiasco that kept as hooked way longer than it should have, to the Jet2holidays jingle that haunted our dreams, to Cynthia Erivo’s facial expressions taking over our lives (the chronically online know), 2025’s memes were truly ones for the ages.
18. Do the shuffle: fashion edition
Who’s in, who is out, and who got a seat at the biggest table? The answer is hidden in a dizzying cat’s cradle of names and luxury brands as designers have jumped ship or joined new houses with dizzying speed. This year, in particular, saw multiple debuts, making it an exciting year for runway fashion—we saw Matthieu Blazy’s first show for Chanel, Jonathan Anderson for Dior, Haider Ackermann’s debut at Tom Ford, Dario Vitale at Versace, and Pierpaolo Piccioli for Balenciaga, among many others.
19. Matcha-latte in hand, the performative male entered the building
The ‘performative male’ epidemic that swept this year is one we’ll probably never forget. Our feeds were overrun with tote-holding, matcha-sipping men—white-tee philosophers perched in parks, earnestly reading feminist literature while listening to a Lana Del Rey album. The world wide web mocked them...but hey, at least they were trying.
20. Mamdani Mubarak, everyone!
Who’d have thought we’d invest so much energy into the mayorship of New York? Or suddenly care so much about democratic socialists, or one specific Uganda-born, South Asian-origin, Muslim mayoral elect. Old rapping videos surfaced, subway takes were given, an army of Gen Z campaigners was enlisted, memes were made (no, Sobo-ites, he’s still not your mayor), and a proud mama (Mira Nair) was seen sweetly pinching her son’s cheeks. Of course, we Indians took it as a personal victory.
21. Tomato-tomahto, Labubu-Lafufu
Labubus took over this year, with celebrities cradling them like beloved children and brands sneaking them into every promo imaginable. And naturally, their popularity spawned a wave of dupes—Lafufus—now giving the bubus a run for their money.
22. Fashion brands entered their Rapunzel era
Would you wear a jacket covered in hair extensions? Or a cap made of long, straight blonde locks. Or even better, how about a trip to the beach wearing the Skims Merkin thong that comes in variations including ‘Clay Ginger Straight’ and ‘Sienna Brown Curly’? Things are getting hairy in fashion, but the question remains: is it just for shock value or are we on a journey to finally embrace hair beyond what’s on our heads?
23. Katy Perry went to space
The internet renewed its love-to-hate-you relationship with Katy Perry. Few events generated as much chatter as the pop star’s 11-minute trip to space, her dandelion moment after touchdown really bringing out everyone’s claws. It was all anyone could talk about—for at least a very chaotic 48 hours.
24. How about some protein popcorn?
And the award for the best PR in the supplement industry goes to… Protein! Racking up more mentions than Kris Jenner’s new face, the macro popped up in the craziest of places, including water, popcorn and idli batter. Is there anything protein can’t be in? We’re almost too scared to ask.
25. We reached peak male objectification
Between all the parasocial zaddys and internet boyfriends, thirsting over men on the ’gram became our favourite pastime in 2025. We swooned collectively over Pedro Pascal’s bare arms at the French Riviera. We left “why is this an hour long” comments on a five-second reel of Jacob Elordi with his trademark handbag, cocking a half-smile at the camera. We sighed over slutty little glasses. The gaze was reversed, and the men happily delivered.
Editorial Direction: Megha Mahindru, Ridhima Sapre. Concept and Production: Harkat Studios, Mahek Rastogi, Nikhat Bhandary, Ananya Choudhury, Shivani J, Annette Jacob, Nayanika Chatterjee, Keyuri Bhogale. Visual Direction: Ria Rawat, Mehak Jindal
