Thank you for reading the Culture Translator.
Every week, we bring parents and caring adults information about what’s happening in culture, including streaming shows, slang terms, trending topics, and tech breakthroughs. This year, our readers opened this newsletter over 2,634,765 times to get informed and equipped to talk with their teens. We offered readers 250 conversation starters, and we reported on at least 200 different topics.
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At the end of every year, we take a few weeks to reset and reflect on everything that happened in culture over the past twelve months. We share our reflections with you in the form of our Top 20 Annual Countdown. This week, you’ll receive 20-11; next week, you’ll get the top ten. If you’d like to hear our deliberations about the order, check out our Roundtable podcasts, available here.
To all of our readers: We know how hard it is to be a parent, teacher, youth leader, and grandparent. We see you. We honor you. And we’re doing it too, right alongside you. Thank you for your trust, feedback, and prayers.
Your Research Assistants,
The Culture Translator Team
10. AI video slop (Sora, VEO3, Vibes):
While AI (at least as we currently understand it) has been evolving rapidly since the start of the decade, 2025 was the year when AI video became mainstream and accessible. The resulting content left us at Axis asking the question, “Why?” While it is impressive that you can generate an entire video using OpenAI’s Sora, Google’s VEO3, or X’s Grok with a short prompt, what the AI spits out is often grotesque and problematic (hence the term “slop”). OpenAI’s social media app, Sora 2, was immediately full of disturbing, historically inaccurate deepfakes of deceased cultural icons. This is to say nothing of the platforms’ struggles to restrict deepfaking of ordinary living humans without their consent. While we started grappling with these technologies as a culture this year, the next generation will really be the ones who will need to live with the consequences in the future.
9. Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime show:
At this year’s Super Bowl, Kendrick Lamar opened his performance with Samuel L. Jackson, dressed as Uncle Sam, delivering a sarcastic monologue about how Lamar is “too loud, too reckless, too… ghetto.” It was a not-so-subtle allusion to the conversation directed at Lamar by some in the lead-up to his performance. Lamar’s music has always sought to capture and share his experience as a Black man and hip-hop artist in America. In February, a broader (perhaps the broadest) American audience was exposed to some of his rhetoric and storytelling, to the joy of some, the confusion of others, and the ire of still others. Wherever you land, Lamar calling fellow hip-hop artist Drake a pedophile in front of a massive audience will forever be an infamous Super Bowl halftime moment, and the music and performance definitely sparked conversations.
8. The American Pope:
In May of 2025, a conclave was held to decide the next earthly head of the Catholic church, and for the first time ever, the Pope who was chosen was a bonafide, White-Sox-supporting American. Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost took the papal name Leo XIV and history was made. For American Catholic teens (not a small group), it’s hard to understate the significance of the new Pope being someone who’s from a similar culture as them. It could even help make Catholic faith, and Christian faith more generally, feel more tangible and approachable for American youth, for the foreseeable future.
7. Taylor Swift’s engagement:
Travis Kelce put a ring on it this summer! Taylor Swift announced the news to her Instagram followers, “Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married 🧨,” alongside photos of her and Kelce in a garden. Why she describes herself as an English teacher and not a music teacher—we’ll never know. As for her bling? Her old mine-cut style, 8-10 carat ring caught the attention of fans and haters alike, with experts estimating the stone’s value between half a million and one million dollars. The wedding is rumored to happen this upcoming summer in Rhode Island and will definitely linger in the news cycle longer than her latest single—which is saying a lot, since it has been #1 for eight weeks.
6. Man’s Best Friend by Sabrina Carpenter:
Videos of Carpenter singing her sexually provocative lyrics and demonstrating sex positions in various states of undress, all with an expression of feigned innocence, blew up on TikTok all year long. But when she teased a new album, Man’s Best Friend, with degrading cover art, the backlash was swift and fierce. Later, she posted a black and white photo of her holding a man in a black suit, saying, “Here is a new alternate cover approved by God“—not exactly an apology. Despite some fans arguing that the original cover was meant to be ironic, comments about hypersexualization, misogyny, and the male gaze began circulating, criticizing Carpenter’s cover and her catalog at large for being too male-centered. This became part of a larger cultural conversation in 2025 about the role of men in relationships (and the world more broadly), with Vogue also publishing an article called “Is having a boyfriend embarrassing?” about the social status associated with having (or not having) a partner.
5. Stranger Things season 5:
The first season of Stranger Things premiered when Barack Obama was the President of the United States. Now, one decade, three presidencies, and five seasons later, the series is finally concluding, and the child actors from that original season are full-grown adults. In the same way, many teens (and young adults) have grown up with the series, and its conclusion is a bittersweet reminder of the passage of time. It’s hard not to remember where you were in 2016 and where you are today, which feels appropriate, considering the show itself is built on nostalgia. This concluding season is bringing to a close the stories of Will Byers, Steve Harrington, Eleven, and many other beloved characters, and it’s been attracting the Netflix audience in droves, more than securing its position on this list for 2025.
4. A Minecraft Movie:
When the initial trailer for A Minecraft Movie dropped, it seemed like the internet as a whole was unsure about the mix of live-action and CGI and the adaptation of some of the most iconic video game characters ever, but when the movie came out this year, it became one of the biggest cultural moments of the year. As teens (especially boys) went to see the movie, they dove deep into its tongue-in-cheek tone, embracing the memes and trends. Phrases like “I am Steve,” “flint and steel,” and the infamous “Chicken Jockey” became cultural rallying cries, creating chaotic moments in theaters as teens played up the trends.
3. 6-7:
In 2025, conditions were apparently ripe for the nonsensical evolution of a meaningless term. Seemingly overnight, every middle school boy in America woke up with an urge to shout, whisper, mouth, and repeat the numbers “6-7!” The catchphrase even had a hand signal, juggling two upturned palms as if weighing two options. It was playful, it was absurd, and let’s be real, it was so annoying. But what did it mean? In an era where anything can evolve to mean, well, anything, “6-7” means nothing at all. And that is the point. “6-7” was determined to escape definition—and yet, it became the Dictionary.com Word of the Year. In that regard, it was a perfect encapsulation of a year plagued by infinite scroll and AI slop.
2. Videos of the assassination of Charlie Kirk on social media:
The assassination of conservative activist and Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk was one of the most significant cultural events of 2025. Perhaps equally loved and hated for his strong political stances, visceral footage of Kirk’s murder was broadcast into the social media feeds of millions of unsuspecting teens and adults who weren’t at all trying to see it. In the month after Kirk’s assassination, Bible sales increased by 36%, and many described feeling inspired by his faith and his willingness to stand up for his beliefs. As Ezra Klein put it in a New York Times article, “You can dislike much of what Kirk believed and the following statement is still true: Kirk was practicing politics in exactly the right way. He was showing up to campuses and talking with anyone who would talk to him. He was one of the era’s most effective practitioners of persuasion.”
1. KPop Demon Hunters:
No one, including Netflix and Sony, expected KPop Demon Hunters to become the number one most-streamed movie on Netflix. The movie is about a band called HUNTR/X. These pop stars secretly defend the world from demons through song. The movie resonated with audiences on a global level, uniting generations and cultures. The beautiful animation, paired with masterful music, resonated with young and old alike. The movie shows audiences that sharing our faults with others can combat shame; when Gwi-Ma, the demon king, whispers lies that push characters into isolation, healing comes through sharing their flaws, struggles, and leaning into community. It’s a story that taps into our desire to be known, forgiven, and loved without having to hide who we are—and when teens think of 2025, they’ll likely recall this film.
Thanks so much for reading our Top 20 Countdown this year! Let us know what you think! Did you agree, did you disagree, was there anything we missed? We’ll be back next week with a few conversation starters for the new year. Until then, we hope you and your family continue to enjoy the Christmas season!