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For the chronically online, 2025 was the year of brain rot, AI slop, and rage bait,” a time of consuming Labubu matcha Dubai chocolate to the sound of nothing beats a Jet2 holiday and six-seven, on repeat, as a form of torture. Here, we take a look back at the biggest internet-culture moments that brought us all together even as the country is more divided than ever. The TikTok ban that never happened If I told you the supposed TikTok ban was this year, would you believe me? In January, users panicked over the looming threat of the apps impending disappearance, flocking to alternatives like the Chinese-owned RedNote and making last-ditch confessions on the doomed apponly for the ban to never materialize. American woman in Pakistan American Onijah Andrew Robinson went viral in February after claiming she flew to Pakistan to marry a 19-year-old she met online, only to be rejected. Instead of returning home, she became a minor celebrity in Pakistan, holding press conferences in Karachi, demanding money, and announcing plans to rebuild the country, earning the moniker American woman in Pakistan. The lone anglerfish Usually found 6,500 feet under the sea, this black seadevil was filmed by marine researchers in Tenerife swimming toward the waters surface. Tragically, the fish died just hours after being spotted, sparking an emotional outpouring on social media for this six-inch fish. RIP. Tesla Cybertrucks If one good thing came out of 2025, its the unanimous cancellation of Cybertrucks. The ostentatiously hideous vehicles became everyones favorite punching bag in 2025 as a result of anti-Elon Musk backlash. A group of TikTokers known as the Cybertruck Hunters roamed the streets, hunting Tesla Cybertrucks in the wild. People posted their Tesla trade-ins on TikTok accompanied by the hashtag ByeTesla and scored to Taylor Swifts Look What You Made Me Do.” Die-hard owners eventually retreated to Facebook support groups and demanded harassment of Tesla drivers be labeled a hate crime (if so, owning one should also be considered one). Great Meme Depression The panic around the lack of memes as we entered the third month of the year began on March 10, when user @goofangel posted a video titled TikTok Great Depression March 2025. He says, Nine days into March and we havent had a single original meme. The Great Meme Depression soon became a meme itself, later triggering talk of The Great Meme Reset of 2026. Stay tuned for updates. OpenAI Studio-Ghibli-gate After Images for ChatGPT launched in March, users transformed selfies and family photos into Studio Ghibli-style portraits. What started as a lighthearted trend quickly took a darker turn as ethical questions and copyright issues began to surface. In a resurfaced clip from a 2016 documentary, Hayao Miyazaki, the founder of Studio Ghibli, called AI an insult to life itself. Some food for thought for 2026. Chicken Jockey If you took a trip to the cinema in April to watch A Minecraft Movie, based on the popular game, you would likely have been subjected to a teen-filled audience yelling Chicken jockey! at the top of their lungs, flashing phone lights, and launching popcorn and drinks at the screen. (To which I say: Why were you watching A Minecraft Movie in the first place?) Conclave In May, Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost of the United States was declared the 267th pope, taking the name Pope Leo XIV. On social media, diva sightings, memes about the niche, daily process of conclave, and live updates of the Sistine Chapels chimney flooded FYPs. Can we do it all again next year? Velvet Sundown The mysterious indie rock bandseemingly unironically named Velvet Sundownsuddenly appeared in Spotifys Discovery Weekly in July, quickly amassing hundreds of thousands of listeners. Their rapid rise sparked speculation that the group might be AI-generated (while they confessed they kind of are, but kind of arent). A true mystery for the ages. Etsy witches 2025 has been a big year for Etsy witches. From sports fans hoping to gain an advantage for their teams to anxious brides praying for perfect wedding weather, more people than ever were purchasing spells on platforms like Etsy this year to turn their luck around. Coldplay’s Kiss Cam We all remember where we were the first time we saw the clip. A Coldplay concert in Massachusetts went viral in July when an HR executive was caught on the jumbotron embracing her companys CEOspurring a million memes nd breaking the internet in the process. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security The official X account of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security tested a new social media strategy this year, as meme lord, drawing widespread backlash on and offline. So far, theyve got on the wrong side of Sabrina Carpenter, SZA, Olivia Rodrigo, Jess Glynne, Theo Von, and Pokémon, to name a few, for featuring their songs and audios without permission to promote deportations. “6-7” Last but not least . . . you cant talk about 2025 without mentioning six, seeeeven. Or maybe we can, and instead pretend a bunch of grown adults dont need to dissect a trend that is only funny, relevant, or interesting if your birth year begins with a two. Unfortunately, the two digits have become too ubiquitous to ignore, wreaking havoc in classrooms, banned at fast food chain In-N-Out, and cemented as the choice for Dictionary.coms word of the year. Lets hope for 2026.
Category:
E-Commerce
When you hear the phrase family business, you might think of the backstabbing Roys of Succession or the dysfunctional Duttons of Yellowstone. But while TVs family companies are entertaining, their real-life counterparts may be even more compelling. Around the world, family businesses produce about two-thirds of all economic output and employ more than half of all workers. And they can be very profitable: The worlds 500 largest family businesses generated a collective US$8.8 trillion in 2024. Thats nearly twice the gross domestic product of Germany. If youre not steeped in family business researchand even if you aretheir ubiquity might seem a little strange. After all, families can come with drama, conflict, and long memories. That might not sound like the formula for an efficient company. We are researchers who study family businesses, and we wanted to understand why there are so many of them in the first place. In our recent article published in the Journal of Management, we set out to understand this different kind of whynot just the purpose of family firms, but why they thrive around the world. The usual answers dont really explain it The standard answer to Why do family companies exist? is straightforward: They allow owners to generate income and potentially create a legacy for future generations. A related question is: Why do entrepreneurs even want to involve their relatives in their new ventures? Research suggests entrepreneurs do so because family members care and can help when resources are limited. But that might not be unique to family businesses. All companieswhether run by a family or corporate executivesbalance short-term profit and long-term goals. And all of them want reliable workers who are willing to pitch in. So those answers dont explain why family companies, specifically, are so common worldwide. A different angle: Winning without fighting For our study, we considered decades of research about family firms to conclude that family businesses are uniquely skilled at keeping competitors out of their market spaceoften without actually competing with them. How? We think a quote from Sun-Tzus The Art of War captures the idea: To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemys resistance without fighting. Family-owned businesses often do exactly this, which is why there are so many of them. Heres how it works in practice. 3 key differences Research on family businesses has shown that they differ from other types of companies in three key ways: the types of goals they pursue, the governance structures they establish, and the resources they have. Together, these three characteristics explain how family businesses may use their property rights to get an edge over their competitors. The first is goals. Unlike other types of enterprises, family businesses prioritize noneconomic goals involving the reputation, legacy, and well-being of the familyboth now and in the future. Of course, they still have to worry about making a profit. But their interest in family-centered goals can lead them to choose projects that may yield lower returns but still fulfill their noneconomic goals. These sorts of projects may not be attractive to other types of firms. As a result, family businesses may find themselves operating in spaces where theres not much competition to start with. For instance, take Corticeira Amorim, a family-run Portuguese company that dominates the global market for cork stoppers and other cork products. The cork industry is a classic narrow niche: There are only a handful of serious global competitors, and Amorim is widely described as the worlds largest cork processing group, with a sizable share of global wine and Champagne corks. CEO Antonio Rios de Amorim discusses the history of his family business in this Business Insider video. The second key factor is governance. Family members who work together often know each other well, care about each other, and want the best for both the family and the firm, which may stay in the familys possession for generations. This fact may reduce operating costs and the cost of contracting. Why? When they make decisions, they dont always need to hire a fancy, Harvey Specter-like lawyer from the show Suits. They can decide on the next move for the company while having dinner together. This significantly reduces the costs associated with decision-making. In other words, because they rely less on formal contracts and monitoring, family businesses can operate more cheaply. Finally, family firms use resources like information and money differently. Since many established family businesses have been around for decades, relatives who work together accumulate information thats hard to acquire and transfer, and might not even be useful elsewhere. Being a family membr means not only doing business with relatives but also going through life together, acquiring a unique perspective about the family itself. As a result, family businesses have lower transaction costs than other companies. Sometimes this shows up in very concrete ways. An uncle may invest money in the business and never ask for it back. Would that happen at a nonfamily business? Probably not. This dedication makes family members a special type of human asset thats hard to replace. Put simply, nonfamily businesses are unlikely to hire someone who cares as much about the companys success as a deeply invested relative does. And because these relationships arent for sale on the open market, competitors cant easily access them. That fact helps family businesses keep competitors at bay while essentially being themselveswhich in turn explains why there are so many of them. Family businesses are so common worldwide that there are several holidays celebrating them, including International Family Business Day on November 25; U.S. National Mom and Pop Business Owners Day on March 29; and the United Nations Micro-, Small, and Medium-Sized Enterprises Day on June 27. This holiday season, you might consider spreading a little extra cheer with the family-run retailers in your community. Vitaliy Skorodziyevskiy is an assistant professor of management and entrepreneurship at the University of Louisville. Hanqing “Chevy” Fang is an associate professor of business and information technology at the Missouri University of Science and Technology. Jim Chrisman is a professor of management at Mississippi State University.
Category:
E-Commerce
If youre an entrepreneur, at the end of the year youre probably excited about the prospect of time off, but also daunted by the new year’s potential and all the deadlines you should be setting. Traditional planning methods like to-do lists and calendars are no longer enough for the complexity of modern careers and lives. This year, I leaned into AI to approach planning differently. When used thoughtfully, AI becomes a partner in strategy, and a system that helps you transform aspirations into structured, executable plans. Heres how I recommend using AI to clarify where youre headed and offer more clarity on how to get there. Redefine the role of AI Most people use AI like a junior assistant, asking it to summarize things or spit out a process or recommendation based on relevant input shared. But what I realized is that AI can be extremely helpful as a thought partner, forcing clarity where youre vague and exposing blind spots youd otherwise ignore. One of the first prompts I ran this year was If I repeat the same behaviors I had this year, where will I realistically end up in 12 months? That question alone reframes everything. AI is excellent at pattern recognition, including your own. Before planning forward, I let AI show me the trajectory Im already on to help me decide what needs to change. Plan like a portfolio manager We have a tendency to approach planning as if every goal deserves equal attention, but lets face it, thats rarely the case. This year, I asked AI to treat my time like a portfolio. I said, given my goals, which 20% are likely to produce 80% of meaningful outcomes? The result was uncomfortable to see but important to make me realize that several projects I thought were important turned out to be just draining my energy. For example, the AI flagged two goals as the most important: clarifying and focusing on one user problem to make sure the team was pushing in one direction, as well as building a regular feedback loop, so that we can iterate the product based on feedback as most important. Everything else on the backlog had to come second. Use AI to run premortems on your year One of the most powerful ways I use AI is by asking it to assume failure. Before finalizing major goals, I run a premortem, by providing context as if its already December next year and the plan failed, helping me see what went wrong. This helps me surface predictable risks, such as being overly optimistic on timelines, or trying to do too many things at once. For example, last year I ran a premortem on what looked like a perfectly reasonable plan of scaling my company while simultaneously launching two new agent products, expanding partnerships, and tightening our internal tooling, all within 12 months. The AI flagged that Id assumed linear progress in a year that would almost certainly include regulatory friction, hiring delays, and long integration cycles with partners. It pointed out that running multiple launches in parallel would fragment leadership attention. This single exercise has saved me months of wasted effort by planning ahead for what can keep me stuck. Turn goals into systems Traditional planning tends to be driven by milestones like “scale by Q4.” But what if, instead of asking what do I want to achieve, you ask: What system do I need to follow to ensure I reach this milestone? This could look like a weekly publishing system with feedback, as opposed to just saying you want to write more. AI helps design these systems, and refine them over time. Let your plan evolve in real time The biggest flaw we tend to make in our annual planning is pretending the future is static. Whats changed for me this year is using AI agents to continuously adapt my plan based on new information, such as meetings added to the calendar or opportunities emerging that I didnt anticipate. You can just sync your preferred chatbot with your calendar to help you do this. This turns planning into a living conversation, not a once-a-year ritual. AI wont magically give you discipline, but it will expose contradictions between what you say you want and how you actually allocate time. Used well, AI becomes a mirror that reflects your priorities back at you in uncomfortably precise ways. The people who will get the most out of AI next year will be doing fewer things, more coherently, with systems that adapt as fast as life does. Using AI to help you in this process is what will make a difference between a plan that looks good on January 1 and one that works all year long.
Category:
E-Commerce
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