2025 TikTok trends we couldn’t resist
Here are our favorite TikTok trends of 2025, including Nicki Minaj’s high heel challenge, Group 7, and Dancing with the Stars’ “Air Walk.”
There has probably been no year as impactful for TikTok as 2025. The year began and ended with social media platforms facing an uncertain future in the United States with the possibility of a ban looming.
But aside from 24 hours of darkness in January, users continue to live their lives as normal.
Songs from past generations recirculated the charts, grown men wished their friends good night, and quarter zips were cool again. Trends like this permeate every aspect of the algorithm and are perhaps the most memorable content on TikTok each year.
“The word trend is ambiguous,” says the TikTok Creative Center website. “We can explain the definition of cool and sales patterns that change over time.”
According to the social media platform, a trend on TikTok is a “creative format, idea, or action that gets a lot of attention on TikTok and, in turn, influences people’s behavior on the platform.”
As the calendar flips to 2026, here are the top 10 most viral trends on TikTok this year.
Our picks for the biggest TikTok trends of 2025
group 7
What is Group 7 on TikTok? Meet the creators behind the viral meme.
Sophia James wanted to use the TikTok algorithm to promote her new song, but ended up sparking a viral trend with users asking, “What is Group 7?”
One singer’s experiment with a series of seven TikTok videos resulted in Group 7, one of this year’s more serendipitous trends.
Sophia James, a 26-year-old Los Angeles-based musician, posted seven videos on TikTok on October 17th to promote her new single “So Unfair.”
For each video, viewers were assigned to numbered “groups.” Group 7’s videos became the most viral, creating a special circle on the Internet that included everyone from brands to sports teams.
Nothing beats a Jet2 vacation
The British airline’s advert made everyone wish they could holiday on Jet2 in 2025.
Over the summer, British airline Jet2’s 2024 TV ad resurfaced on TikTok. Set to the tune of Jess Glynne’s 2015 song ‘Hold My Hand’, the ad cheerfully proclaims: ‘There’s nothing like a holiday on Jet 2’.
Thousands of creators shared their own videos to the tune of the ad, using some of the audio available on TikTok. Most of the time, users were overlaying sounds at funny moments. The voice actors behind the viral audio and the airlines themselves are also influencing this trend.
“This is what we mean when we say there’s nothing like a Jet2 holiday…” reads the caption of Jet2’s July 15 Instagram post, which shows a video of travelers flying the airline.
Nicki Minaj’s high heel challenge
Check out the new TikTok challenge inspired by Nicki Minaj
Pop star Nicki Minaj’s high heel challenge has taken over TikTok, with Minaj’s 2013 “High School” music video influencing the trend.
History has shown that songs, or in this case music videos, can be given new life on TikTok years or even decades after they were first released. Nicki Minaj released a music video for the song “High School” in 2013, but New trends on TikTok will bring it back to the spotlight in 2025k with high heels.
The challenge involves people recreating moves modeled by Minaj in her music video. In this move, Minaj crosses one leg over the other while wearing high heels and balancing both feet on the ground.
Everyone from everyday wearers to celebrities like Ciara and Jenna Bush Hager are trying to balance themselves in stilettos.
“Beads in the Trap”
Minaj’s music was named another of this year’s top TikTok trends. A mashup of her 2012 song “Beez in the Trap” and 4 Non Blondes’ early ’90s hit “What’s Up?” The viral trend of lip syncing has taken TikTok by storm in recent months.
The trend begins with two people standing back to back and one person reciting a mashup portion of “What’s Up?” The camera then pans to the other party and they belt out the chorus of “Beads in the Trap.”
The trending video has racked up millions of views on social media platforms, with A-listers including Jimmy Fallon and Malala Yousafzai, Khloe Kardashian and Kylie Jenner, Sabrina Carpenter and Marcello Hernandez, and many others going wild over the remix.
aura cultivation
A centuries-old Indonesian tradition has spawned a popular dance clip and a new slang term, making it an Oxford Word of the Year candidate.
A video posted to TikTok in July of a young boy dancing on a moving boat during Indonesia’s annual event known as Pak Jalur has garnered millions of views and popularized the phrase “aura farming.”
According to Know Your Meme, the term “aura farming” was first used in 2024, but became even more popular after Pacu Jalur’s video was posted. Since then, recreating the dance has become widespread and even popular among NFL players.
According to Oxford, the term has also been expanded to generally refer to developing “an impressive, attractive, or charismatic personality or public image by behaving or presenting oneself in a manner intended to subtly convey an air of confidence, poise, and mystique.”
sacred ear bulb
Explaining the slang of “Holy Air Ball” and TikTok trends
A new TikTok trend is helping people realize that their preconceptions and assumptions were off the mark.
Cracked.com – Know your meme
2025 was also the year that TikTok became more flexible. The trending “Sacred Airball” videos that gained traction on the platform in late May featured users boasting about what they were known for and other random facts about themselves, such as their careers, hobbies, and general accomplishments.
The video, set to Jeezy’s 2005 hit “Survivor,” is formatted like a conversation with a new friend, where users must “broach the subject” with someone worth getting to know.
For example, two-time Dancing with the Stars winner Julianne Hough posted a TikTok video in which she said, “I told him I love dancing.”
“He said, ‘Oh, you’re so cute. When you were a kid?'” appears on screen, before a series of videos of Hough competing on “Dancing with the Stars” are captioned, “#HolyAirball.”
“Airball” refers to a missed basketball dunk.
hozier’s cry
Hozier’s three-second adlib on the duet version of Noah Kahan’s 2023 song “Northern Attitude (Hozier’s Version)” sparked a jubilant TikTok trend earlier this year.
The trend involves users taking a portion of a song in which Hozier does a long scream and inserting their own clip into it, declaring a “moment that felt like a Hozier scream.” The selected moment typically depicts a time when the user felt peak euphoria or catharsis.
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TikToker hangs from road sign to make Kid Cudi trend go viral
Social media trends have users hanging from road signs, lampposts, or any high surface.
Another decades-old song has been named one of this year’s top TikTok trends.
The trend, based on Kid Cudi’s 2008 song “Maui Wowie,” involves users suspending themselves from road signs, lampposts, and other high surfaces, showing off their upper body strength while lip-syncing.
Many people, including Kid Cudi himself, use one or both hands to hang from the sign while dangling their feet and singing the song.
I’m so hungry that I can eat.
See some of the best reactions to the viral ‘hungry’ trend
Social media users are pranking their loved ones by naming them from the past in the “Hungry” trend.
Sure, at some point you may have been hungry enough to eat a horse, cow, or other inanimate object. But have you ever thought about eating your parents’ childhood friend or teenage crush?
In the “I’m Hungry” challenge, someone catches a loved one off guard by offering to eat someone from their past, such as an old friend, boss, or ex-boyfriend.
The trend, which went viral earlier this year, has been replicated by countless social media users sharing funny videos of people reacting in various ways to names from their past being brought up, some laughing and others angry.
bugatti challenge
An old challenge that’s getting a new lease of life in 2025 is our final pick for this year’s TikTok trends.
The “Bugatti Challenge” features people sitting on the floor and pretending to drive a car, while someone off-camera pulls their foot to slide them out of frame. The video is set to Ace Hood’s 2013 hit song “Bugatti,” with the line “I woke up in a new Bugatti.”
The most viewed videos of this trend are those that go awry, with partners of vastly different strength levels pulling each other down.
Melina Khan is USA TODAY’s national trends reporter. Contact her at melina.khan@usatoday.com.
Contributors: Greta Cross, Edward Segarra, USA TODAY
