If 2024 was a blurry smudge, then 2025 was a stubborn stain that just wouldn’t go away.
The shitshow began punctually after New Year’s Eve when I noticed some cunt had ripped off my car’s Mercedes emblem. No, this obviously dare not compare to the untold damage caused by the California wildfires that started on the 1st of January and were exacerbated by drought conditions, mismanagement, and budget cuts — but hey, it’s a symbolic start!
Donald Trump was sworn in as the 47th US President and immediately dispatched a barrage of executive orders such as pardoning the US Capitol attackers and other convicted criminals, withdrawing from the World Health Organisation and renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America”. He created an agency named DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency, headed by Elon Musk) that went on to dismiss thousands of federal workers, researchers and intellectuals to cut down on unnecessary liberal and leftist expenses. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) thugs began kidnapping and detaining civilians and forcefully deporting thousands of illegal or undocumented immigrants. Afrikaners, however, were declared an endangered species on account of “white genocide” and became the only refugees permitted into the USA.
A potential deal between the USA and Ukraine aimed at ending the war with Russia resulted in embarrassment for all parties before Trump started a trade war with the rest of the world through a range of confusing tariffs on imported and exported goods, then went on to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities and terrorist groups in Nigeria, Somalia, and Yemen as well as Venezuelan ships.
Meanwhile, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine goes on while Israel continues to bomb civilians in Gaza despite a ceasefire but, at least, they can now confidently market their arms export industries as “battle-tested” to their European buyers.
The UK government advised people to fix their leaky loos and save water by deleting old emails and pictures amid a dry spell in England because data centres require vast amounts of it to cool their systems.
Seriously, you can’t make this shit up!
Companies like Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft, meanwhile, pour billions in capital expenditure into AI infrastructure. Consumers complain about increased electricity bills.
Nvidia (whose chips power much of AI) becomes the most valuable company in the world and the first to hit a $5 trillion valuation — yet may not sell their most powerful chips to China over fears that they could gain an edge in artificial intelligence over the USA.
Nevertheless, China’s BYD overtook Tesla as the world’s biggest seller of electric vehicles.
Sanae Takaichi became the first female prime minister of Japan, and Zohran Mamdani is voted in as New York City’s first Muslim mayor. Friedrich Merz becomes Germany’s new Chancellor and is forced into a CDU/CSU–SPD coalition because they can’t possibly partner with what’s become the second-largest political force, the far-right AfD… right?
The Afrikaans language officially turned 100 years old. LibraryThing turned 20.
Microsoft turned 50 and shut down Skype. Windows 10 went end-of-life in October.
Disgusted with Windows 11 and the latest Linux distros, Dedoimedo buys a Macbook.
In 2025 the Beatles won a best rock performance Grammy for “Now and then”, featuring the vocals of John Lennon originally recorded on tape in 1970 and extracted using AI.
Genetic testing company 23andme went Chapter 11. For a while it was uncertain where the DNA data of 15 million people would be going. Tea Dating Advice (a so-called dating safety app that allows women to do anonymous background checks on men) was hacked, with the data appearing on 4chan. An adulterous couple was seen at a Coldplay concert.
In July, the UK introduced an Online Safety Act that forces online platforms to ensure they filter out certain content harmful to children, and, as of December, under-16s in Australia are completely banned from using major social media services including Tiktok, Facebook, X, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, and Threads.
In October, the Louvre Museum was shaken by one of the most audacious robberies when thieves made off with priceless French crown jewels worth an estimated $102 million in broad daylight. During the Christmas holidays, robbers broke into the safety deposit boxes of a bank in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, stealing cash, gold and jewellery estimated to be worth up to $105 Million.
“Hentai”, for the fifth time in a row, is Pornhub’s top search term for 2025.
Pope Francis passed away. He was succeeded by Pope Leo XIV, the first American pontiff.
In 2025, the world of music lost Ace Frehley (Kiss), Brian Wilson (the Beach Boys), Chris Rea, Garth Hudson (last member of the Band), Marianne Faithfull, Ozzy Osbourne, Roberta Flack, Rick Davies (Supertramp), drummers Clem Burke (Blondie) and Luis Jardim, keyboardists Dave Ball (Soft Cell) and Stephen Luscombe (Blancmange), producer Roy Thomas Baker, German composer Klaus Doldinger and schlager legend Jack White.
The curtain closed on actors Diane Keaton, Gene Hackman, Gil Gerard (Buck Rogers), Michael Madsen, Prunella Scales (Fawlty Towers), Richard Chamberlain, Robert Redford, Terence Stamp, Udo Kier, Val Kilmer as well as directors David Lynch and Rob Reiner.
Extreme sportsman Felix Baumgartner died when he paraglided into a wooden hut in Switzerland. Other members of the year’s obituary include playwright Athol Fugard, former boxing champ and grillmeister George Foreman, fashion designer Giorgio Armani, wrestling entertainer Hulk Hogan, primatologist Jane Goodall, televangelist Jimmy Swaggart, in addition to sexpots Brigitte Bardot and Claudia Cardinale.
So, in honour of the two sex kittens, here’s the traditional image of Christmas hotties.
Of course it’s AI-generated!
Ah, yes, AI — the curse that keeps on giving!
The year saw several new AI models, transformative products and new breakthroughs in science and robotics although it is not yet clearly understood how usage and reliance on chatbots affects mental health. At the time of writing, at least nine people have committed suicide following guidance by chatbots in 2025 alone (and that’s not counting accidents or murders). Claude became my own personal obsession for a presentation on the topic.
Nonetheless, none of the fears nor predictions about AI replacing the human workforce have materialised as promised because, according to “the great hype correction“, some 95% of enterprise AI pilot efforts failed to demonstrate measurable value or progress beyond experimental stages. Instead, what we got was oodles of AI slop, deepfakes, misinformation and AI-generated tunes breaking into the charts.
Let’s pretend it’s not the end of the world.
All images by hmvh.net or AI unless specified otherwise.
