2025: looking back
Graphic compiling photos of the major events of 2025 (Ryan Win-Ruan / The Puma Prensa)
By William Winkelman, Website Editor - Ryan Win-Ruan, News Editor - Wyett Pinney, Photo Editor
Historically, a “WTF” year is one that starts on a Wednesday and is usually pretty chaotic. 2025 certainly lived up to these expectations, with a flurry of international events and extensively covered controversies throughout the year.
January:
The year kicked off eventfully, with the beginning of President Donald Trump’s second term making him the second U.S. president to serve two inconsecutive terms, after Grover Cleveland. His inauguration was soon followed by a flurry of administrative reforms, including the renaming of the “Gulf of Mexico” to the “Gulf of America” and the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). In the religious realm, Pope Francis died, ushering in a period of debates and rumors surrounding who the next pope would be. The Russo-Ukrainian War raged on into its third year, and the Gaza War continued into its second.
February:
This month was also hit with some major events just like last year. To start off, the 67th Grammy awards happened with Beyoncé winning best album for the album "Cowboy Carter," and Kendrick Lamar winning best song for the title “Not Like Us.” Kendrick Lamar then reappeared in the news on the 7th as the Super Bowl LIX halftime show. His halftime show was used as a symbol for race, identity, and culture, especially for the black community. About halfway through this month, a lot of hype around the Pokemon card game and collection of said cards surged up. This was due to the mobile game “Pokemon TCG Pocket,” as well as the set “Prismatic Evolutions” for the card game containing a lot of fan favorites. This resurgence caused many people to overcollect, invest, and scalp these cards, buying a lot only to resell them to people who actually want them for marked up prices. To wrap up the month, an odd moment occurred in the oval office, as President Zelenskyy of Ukraine had a meeting with Donald Trump. In this meeting, he was insulted for not wearing a suit to the meeting, while being a US allied country.
March:
March was somewhat eventful, with the biggest national news being President Trump starting to dismantle the Department of Education. Furthermore, the US government group chat leak took the world by storm, mostly because of the complete and utter failure to have any operational security. As far as pop culture, no major musical or film projects took place for the duration of March. Online, March was even considered “The Great Meme Drought” due to the lack of any popular trends on every social media platform.
April:
April kicked off with the release of A Minecraft Movie on the fourth, finally releasing after years of saying it would be coming soon and lots of building anticipation. This movie marked a huge cultural point of the year as it went wild in theaters, with people quoting things like “Chicken Jockey.” On the 14th, Katy Perry and other celebrities visited space. To many Americans on social media, this moment was similar to the quote falsely attributed to Marie Antoinette, “let them eat cake.” This quote represents the views commonly seen from royals or the people in government during a terrible economic period. This was as rich people were doing more rich people things while others struggled through this economy, especially with tariffs. To finish the month, the song “Mystical Magical” by Benson Boone released, having a huge impact on pop culture as it trended on social media and led to a lot of trends throughout the following month.
May:
May's chaos was muted by the process of choosing a new Pope. On May 8th, Pope Leo XIV was elected, becoming the first American pope in history. May also saw the continuation of President Trump's tariffs with China, agreeing to a 90-day trade deal to lower the tariffs from 145% to 30% on Chinese imports. Though, a panel of US judges did unanimously agree that President Trump exceeded his authority using The International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1997 to place the tariffs.
June:
The beginning of summer coincided with the start of the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season, which yielded three Category Five hurricanes, the second most of any year on record. Towards the end of June, the movie “K-Pop Demon Hunters” was released, skyrocketing to popularity and achieving massive success both at home and in theaters. The first No Kings Day protests began in June, kicking off a massive series of political movements and gatherings against the current U.S. President, Donald Trump.
July:
July was a busy month for the courts, both political and criminal. In the world of politics, Trump enacted the “Big Beautiful Bill,” modifying US tax rates and moving around funding in order to increase the budget of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from $10 billion to nearly $100 billion. In the courtroom, Sean “Diddy” Combs was sentenced to over four years of jail time and $500,000 in fines, following a nearly year-long investigation into the rapper’s criminal actions.
August:
Just as quick as they came into fashion, Labubu’s had faded from people's minds. This shows just how much consumerism has affected us, with over one billion in profits for the company “Pop Mart” relating to these collectables. These were similar to “Beanie Babies” from the 90s, except they lasted only three months and not a decade, proving how they are a byproduct of consumerism. Following this, Walmart got put in the news for selling radioactive shrimp to their consumers. AI also made leaps and bounds, with a video of some bunnies on a trampoline gaining attention due to their realistic look, confusing a lot of people. Wrapping up this month, Taylor Swift announced her engagement to Travis Kelce on the 26th, following a longer romance between the two.
September:
September has a huge variety of news, from one of the most anticipated games of the decade to the renaming of a major US department. In pop culture news, the sequel to Hollow Knight, Silksong, was released. After an eight year long wait for fans of the game Hollow Knight, the sequel was incredibly well received, instantly becoming a fan favorite. In national news, the Department of Defense was renamed to the Department of War via an executive order from President Trump. September also saw the death of political advocate Charlie Kirk, leading to various responses from the entire political spectrum.
October:
This month, the Louvre museum in France was robbed, setting off a massive investigation into the case. Elsewhere, on October 10, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado. Back in the US, a government shutdown arose from a debate between Democrats and Republicans surrounding government funding plans. This standstill would last until November 12, becoming the longest government shutdown in U.S. history at 43 days long. Across the Pacific, Sanae Takaichi was elected Prime Minister of Japan with 70-80% approval ratings, some of the highest of all time. Her election sparked massive clashes between China and Japan, especially concerning the historically controversial topic of Taiwan.
November:
November was a month! The most notable event that happened in the US during November was Zohran Mamdani winning the New York mayoral elections. Mamdani’s promises of stabilizing rent and making affordable housing resonated with New York, making him the 112th Mayor of New York. It also came as an upset against Andrew Cuomo, who was both a former governor of New York and whose father and grandfather were both prominent New York politicians. November also saw the minting of the last penny, due to its value being at an all time high and it costing more to make than its monetary worth. In major sporting news, the Baseball World Series ended, with the Los Angeles Dodgers winning against the Blue Jays in seven games.
December:
To wrap up the year, December was also filled with important moments. To start off this year, the Game of the Year Awards was in a record-breaking sweep with the game “Clair Obscur: Expedition 33” winning nine awards. Finally, the Epstein files were released, but not as promised, as most of the text was blacked out and also only a portion actually came out, despite more being promised. On the last day of the year we got two major television specials. MTV streamed “Video Killed the Radio Star” only this time to monument streaming killing video, their last program before closing all their music channels for good after 44 years. The other was the Stranger Thing’s finale, wrapping up the five season show. Many complaints did appear out of this finale over the quality of the ending. Also, through this month we saw booms in AI progress as it gets more accurate and more money gets invested, we will see how it shapes 2026.