2025 Objectified: 15 lifestyle objects that captured the public imagination
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The Straits Times Life section drills down 15 objects that made an impact in 2025.
PHOTOS: REUTERS, AFP, GIN TAY
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SINGAPORE – From bag charms and Taylor Swift’s engagement ring to ChatGPT and pizzas, The Straits Times Life section drills down 15 objects that made an impact in 2025.
ChatGPT: Everyone’s minion... and boss?
More than 18 billion messages are sent to ChatGPT every week.
PHOTO: KELSEY MCCLELLAN/NYTIMES
Generative AI has become a verb. Go to a friend with a question, and they might shunt you with a “just ChatGPT it” or “Ask Chat”.
Verbing is that rare peak of success achieved by all endemic technology – like Google, Facebook and Grab – though none in the history of the internet have been so intensely personified by their users as OpenAI’s chatbot.
Bag charms: Recession-proof way to flex personal style
Accessorising one’s purse with bag charms has become the de facto way to express identity and personal style.
ST PHOTOS: TARYN NG
It may have started with Labubus, but bag charms exploded into their own category of products in 2025.
From plushies to jewellery-inspired chains to beaded keychains to clip-on beauty products, you would be hard-pressed to find a tote on the streets not covered in trinkets and toys.
Accessorising one’s purse became the de facto way to express identity and personal style. Carrying the same bag at an event became less of a fashion faux pas when you “made” it your own.
Food plushies and merch: Whetting appetites for SG60
SG60 Breakfast Plush by Play Nation.
PHOTO: PLAY NATION
Give yourself a pat on the back if you walked away from 2025 without a single plushie in the shape of local food.
Kaya toast, in particular, was ubiquitous in this SG60 year, appearing on so many forms of merchandise that it is a wonder we did not collectively grow sick of the breakfast favourite.
Jeans: Symbol of culture wars after viral ads
Actress Sydney Sweeney appears in a "good jeans" campaign poster at an American Eagle's store in Times Square in New York.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Casual denim faced some serious charges in 2025 as a hugely viral American Eagle jeans ad was variously labelled Nazi, MAGA – “Make America great again” being US President Donald Trump’s pet slogan – and a slam dunk against woke marketing.
The fractious campaign, launched in July and taglined “Sydney Sweeney has good jeans”, stars the American actress in a series of videos.
In one, the camera pans over a supine Sweeney squirming into her pants as she delivers a crash course in Mendelian genetics: “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair colour, personality and even eye colour. My jeans are blue.” Wink, wink.
Blind boxes: Is cute here to stay?
Labubu was China’s most internationally influential online pop culture intellectual property in the past year.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Labubu and other cute things continued to hold the world by the throat in 2025.
A man in Australia was charged in October with stealing 43 Labubu dolls worth over $7,500.
Earlier in June, the launch of snack-themed Labubu dolls in Singapore drew a queue of about 160 fans at retailer Pop Mart’s Ion Orchard store, with some arriving before dawn.
Labubu was China’s most globally influential online pop culture intellectual property in the past year, according to a report released in November by Beijing-based think-tank Academy of Contemporary China and World Studies.
Share A Coke: Personalisation made charmingly low-tech in the age of AI
Beverage giant Coca-Cola revived the Share A Coke campaign in 2025, with over 150,000 customised cans created in the first month alone.
PHOTO: AFP
Household legacy brands are going all out with marketing gimmicks to stay relevant to consumers. Who can blame them? In a time of content churn, memories are fickle bears. Faster than you can blink, one quirky trend makes way for the next.
In 2025, beverage giant Coca-Cola looked to its history for a marketing gimmick it hoped would last longer in the minds of consumers. It brought back the Share A Coke campaign, which originated in Australia in 2011 and was launched in Singapore in 2015.
The campaign replaced the Coca-Cola logo on its cans with over 170 popular names and titles, such as “Lao Ban” (boss) or “John” or “Lim”. These were sold at supermarkets and convenience stores islandwide.
Eggplants by Suzann Victor at NGS: Instagrammable entry point to wronged artist
Suzann Victor's commission Still Life at the National Gallery Singapore.
ST PHOTO: GIN TAY
The eggplant, or aubergine or brinjal, has always been a fruit with many names.
But does it smell sweet? One might be forgiven for thinking so at the National Gallery Singapore, with so many visitors hovering their noses so close to its rotting flesh.
The purplish protuberances were part of a commissioned work created by Australia-based Singapore artist Suzann Victor, once sidelined but in fresh vogue in 2025.
Titled Still Life, the 200 eggplants were catnip not just for Instagram but also gallery thieves. In August, they made headlines after some were found to be missing, prompting NGS to set up signage warning visitors against touching the wall-mounted commentary on drooping, futile masculinity.
Emojis from Netflix’s Adolescence expose how language is evolving faster than before
The Netflix series Adolescence, starring Owen Cooper, piqued curiosity across the globe into the coded language of the manosphere.
PHOTO: NETFLIX
“How can you be involuntarily celibate at 13? Who isn’t celibate at 13?” says a police-inspector father in the Netflix crime drama series Adolescence (2025).
This was in response to his child expressing frustration that he doesn’t know what the “pill emoji” means, or what it means to be called an “incel”.
Part of the show’s viral appeal, beyond its cinematography and compelling acting, is how it taps into how people increasingly communicate through the lens of internet culture and obscure memes.
Adolescence piqued curiosity across the globe into the coded language of the manosphere, with terms like “red pilled” and the “80/20 rule”.
Object of desire: One engagement ring to rule them all
Taylor Swift's bespoke ring features a cushion-cut Old Mine Cut diamond, rounded at the corners, and bezel-set in a hand-engraved gold band.
PHOTO: TAYLORSWIFT/INSTAGRAM
The day Aug 26 saw a fellowship of a different kind when Swifties across the globe zoomed in on one precious commodity: Taylor Swift’s engagement ring.
The American pop star’s vintage-style rock is undoubtedly the one ring that rules over all celebrity engagement rings of 2025 – minus the death and destruction Gollum’s prized possession caused in English writer J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord Of The Rings trilogy.
Following the news that American football player Travis Kelce, 36, had proposed to his sweetheart of two years, the unique jewellery on the 36-year-old singer’s ring finger immediately generated record-breaking searches.
Nintendo Switch 2: Playing it safe with more of the same?
The conservative design of the Nintendo Switch 2 perhaps captures best what consumers are looking for in a year of global uncertainty.
PHOTO: REUTERS
In a year defined by uncertainty, one of the best-selling consumer products of 2025 was perhaps the safest thing that console-maker Nintendo has ever created.
The Nintendo Switch 2, which was released on June 26 in Singapore, sold more than 3.5 million units worldwide in its first four days of release. By September, it had sold over 10 million units, making it the fastest-selling console of all time.
And yet, most reviewers agree that the Nintendo Switch 2 represents less of a leap into the future than a few steady steps forward (and one step back when it comes to battery life).
This conservative design choice perhaps captures best what consumers are looking for in a year of global uncertainty.
Podcast: Must-have accessory for all famous women
Monica Lewinsky (left) hosts the podcast Reclaiming, about taking back one’s name after it has been dragged through mud, while Meghan Markle hosts business and self-help show Confessions Of A Female Founder.
PHOTOS: AFP, REUTERS
The year 2025 is the season of the female celebrity podcast.
Socialite and television personality Khloe Kardashian launched Khloe In Wonder Land. Royal family member Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, began Confessions Of A Female Founder and American activist Monica Lewinsky started Reclaiming With Monica Lewinsky.
Good Hang With Amy Poehler, hosted by the titular comedienne, also began life in 2025. IMO With Michelle Obama & Craig Robinson is the former first lady’s third podcast since 2020, and is co-hosted with her brother.
The paintbrush, elixir pot and sword: How Asia’s risk-taking animation beat the West
(Clockwise from top left) Chinese epic fantasy Ne Zha 2, Chinese animated comedy Nobody and Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba – The Movie: Infinity Castle.
PHOTOS: ENCORE FILMS, SONY PICTURES
China and Japan might be at loggerheads politically right now, but earlier in 2025, their combined powers broke Hollywood’s grip on animation.
The fantasy Ne Zha 2, an adaptation of the folk tale Investiture Of The Gods, roared out of China to become the highest-grossing animated film of all time with its global take of more than US$2 billion (S$2.6 billion). It also took the crowns for being 2025’s highest-earning film and the highest-grossing non-English film in history.
In Singapore, it set the record for the highest first-day gross for a Chinese film by taking in around $300,000 upon its March 6 release. It went on to become the Republic’s most lucrative Chinese film by passing $6 million at the local box office.
Pizza: Piling on the pies
(Clockwise from left) Chefs Tsubasa Tamaki, Vincenzo Capuano and Bjorn Shen.
PHOTOS: PIZZA STUDIO TAMAKI, LIM YAOHUI, ARTICHOKE PIZZA PARLOR
The demand for pizza in Singapore is insatiable and purveyors are only too happy to roll out pie after pie in every conceivable style.
Before 2025, the city already had a thriving pizza scene, with many styles and brands. International ones include Il Clay Supper Club, L’Antica Pizzeria Da Michele, Torno Subito, Fortuna, Anto Pizza e Aperitivi, Osteria Mozza and Roberta’s.
Home-grown ones include La Bottega Enoteca, Wild Child Pizzette, Blue Label Pizza & Wine, Bad Habits Provision, Chooby Pizza, Choice Cuts Pizza & Records, That’s My Pizza and Goldenroy Sourdough Pizza.
Pizzaiolos also sell pies from their homes, and these home-based food businesses include Long Weekend Pizza, JrPizzeria, PXZA and Wala Pizza.
Vending machines: The answer to labour woes?
At a time when many F&B businesses are struggling with manpower and rental woes, operating a vending machine has become a way to circumvent this.
PHOTOS: LIM YAOHUI, HEDY KHOO, HYPHA VENDING RETAIL, ST FILE, SHIN MIN DAILY NEWS, BERITA HARIAN
Conventional food and drink dispensers may be fairly commonplace across the island, but a new generation of brightly coloured vending machines has gained instant traction.
Their selling points: convenience, affordability, quality and freshness, similar to what one might get at a hawker stall, bakery or fast-service eatery – an unbeatable combo for busy and hungry people around-the-clock.
At a time when many F&B businesses are struggling with manpower and rental woes, operating a vending machine has become a way to circumvent this and provide an additional source of revenue.
The year kicked off with viral durian dispensing machines, which debuted at Tampines MRT station in January. Durian seller Kaki Kaki, which ran it, added three more machines in Sembawang, Toa Payoh and Bukit Panjang.
Dumplings: Back in trend with a fresh wrap of regional flavours
The Quan Jia Fu (All In One) dumpling bowl at Chuxin Wonton comprises 15 wonton.
ST PHOTO: KUA CHEE SIONG
As diners gravitate towards food which offers good value and is handmade right before their eyes, dumplings have become one of 2025’s trending eats.
The everyman staple drew renewed interest as new brands showcased their founders’ home town traditions, giving diners a taste of the many varied facets of China’s dumpling culture.
At these new concepts, glass-panelled open kitchens offered views of dumplings being wrapped to order – a clear display of freshness and kitchen hygiene.
One of them is Guangzhou-based Yuen Kee Dumpling, which offers Cantonese-style dumplings, such as its popular Shrimp & Vegetable Pork Dumplings ($9.80 for 10).
