Culture recap: 5 moments from June that had the internet buzzing

From May into June, the internet delivered a back-to-back surge of viral moments, each one louder, faster, and stranger than the last. While we’ve grown used to the monthly churn of celebrity drama, surprise album drops, and memes that double as marketing, this stretch took familiar patterns and pushed them into completely unexpected territory.

What made it different wasn't just the volume of cultural moments, but how quickly they evolved. A toy from China didn’t just go viral; it rewrote the playbook for how physical products can capture digital attention. A local political race in New York didn’t just make headlines; it showed how internet culture now shapes real-world power dynamics.

Each event or trend here reveals something deeper about how culture spreads in 2025, how authenticity travels faster than polish, how niche communities can suddenly reshape mainstream conversations, and how the line between entertainment and commerce continues to blur in ways that surprise even the people drawing those lines.

From internet-fueled elections to billion-stream ballads, this was a month of moments that reminded us: Gen Z isn’t just consuming culture, they’re curating it. Here’s a look at the six biggest cultural shifts that made waves in June.

Labubu mania: The $50 toy that took over the world

The algorithm knew something was shifting before most brands did. One day, feeds were normal. The next, they were flooded with big-eyed, gremlin-like creatures that looked like they’d crawled out of a fever dream, and people couldn’t get enough.

Labubu, a vinyl collectible from Hong Kong's POP MART, didn’t follow any playbook for viral success. No celebrity endorsements. No million-dollar marketing campaign. Just a deliberately odd toy with a crooked smile that became June’s most coveted object.

The takeover happened in layers. First came the unboxing videos, blind bags being opened with the intensity of lottery tickets. Then the room tours, where twenty-somethings showed off Labubu shrines with the reverence usually reserved for sneaker collections. Finally, the resale market exploded, with rare variants selling for hundreds of dollars above retail.

Labubu’s real power wasn’t in scarcity, it was in its refusal to be conventionally appealing. While most brands chase universal likability, Labubu embraced the opposite. It was polarising by design, creating an instant in-group of people who “got it” versus those who didn’t.

The takeaway? Young consumers aren’t looking for products that blend in, they want pieces that announce their subcultural identity. Labubu wasn’t just a toy; it was a password into an aesthetic movement. A signal that weird is the new cool.

Sabrina Carpenter’s album rollout

When Sabrina Carpenter revealed the cover art for Man’s Best Friend, she didn’t just drop an album, she launched a global debate. The original image showed her on all fours in a black mini-dress and heels, while a suited man pulled her hair. It was provocative, loaded with subtext, and designed to provoke.

The backlash was immediate. Critics called the image regressive. Glasgow Women’s Aid labelled it as “pandering to the male gaze.” Fans and detractors alike went into theory mode, was this satire? Shock value? A social commentary?

Instead of addressing the criticism directly, Carpenter doubled down with a second, toned-down “God-approved” alternate cover, featuring her in a black-and-white gown. Two visuals, two tones, and, most importantly, two pre-order options. The ambiguity? 100% deliberate.

This wasn’t just pop promotion, it was narrative co-creation. Carpenter’s team leaned into the chaos, letting fans argue, defend, dissect, and do the heavy lifting of visibility. Each post, each think-piece, became free PR. And when the album finally dropped in late June, it landed with the weight of a month’s worth of speculation.

The move confirmed a growing truth in modern marketing: sometimes silence and speculation drive more engagement than answers. Carpenter didn’t just sell music, she sold a mystery, and the world bought it.

Sydney Sweeney’s 'Bath Water'

In one of June’s more bizarre-but-on-brand moments, Sydney Sweeney teamed up with beauty brand Laneige for a limited-edition 'Sydney Sweeney Bath Water' launch, and yes, it was exactly as it sounds. The tongue-in-cheek marketing move repackaged Laneige’s popular cream skin mist into a bottle designed to look like it contained Sweeney’s own post-bath soak, complete with a label that read 'collected from her bath.'The actress faced backlash for seemingly playing into outdated beauty tropes, with some critics arguing that she had taken the feminist movement “a step back” by commodifying her image in a hyper-sexualised way. 

While the product itself was perfectly standard skincare, the concept sent the internet spiraling, sparking jokes, think pieces, and plenty of memes. Critics called it unserious; fans called it genius. Either way, the buzz was undeniable.The product promptly sold out, It was a reminder that in a crowded beauty market, leaning into internet weirdness, and not taking yourself too seriously, might just be the winning strategy.

When politics met pop: Zohran Mamdani’s NYC Mayoral campaign

In a month full of viral songs and fashion moments, one of the most talked-about videos on social media came from an unexpected source: New York State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani. His re-election campaign video wasn’t your average political spot, it was funny, cheeky, self-aware, and distinctly meme-able.

The now-viral campaign video from Zohran Mamdani wasn’t made by a traditional political agency, it was the work of Melted Solids, a Brooklyn-based creative collective founded by Debbie Saslaw and Anthony DiMieri. The duo, along with a tight-knit team including videographer Donald Borenstein and longtime collaborator Kara McCurdy, approached the campaign more like a grassroots film shoot than a political operation. As profiled in media reports, the group’s DIY ethos, meme-savvy instincts, and ability to weave humour with everyday struggles gave Mamdani’s videos their signature style. From plunging into the Coney Island surf to Valentine’s Day gags hiding voter registration messages in a box of chocolates, the content blurred the line between civic messaging and creator content.

Mamdani’s wife even contributed animations. The result? A campaign that felt native to the internet, not parachuted in. Melted Solids’ strategy leaned on lo-fi aesthetics, loopy humour, and authenticity, not talking points.  His video is now being studied not just as political content, but as a blueprint for next-gen campaigning. If Gen Z wants substance and style, Mamdani’s playbook might just be the future.

Ed Sheeran x Arijit Singh

June gave us the cultural crossover we didn’t know we needed, Ed Sheeran and Arijit Singh in one song. The collaboration for the song 'Sapphire,' wasn’t teased with billboards or hype campaigns. It dropped quietly, and then exploded.

Their performance together earlier this year in Mumbai laid the foundation. But no one expected a full-blown bilingual track mixing Ed’s signature acoustics with Arijit’s rich, Hindi-inflected vocals. The result? An emotional anthem that took over playlists worldwide within days.

No fancy rollout. No big-budget videos. Just a heartfelt track and two of the world’s most-streamed artists vibing across borders. 

For marketers, the lesson was clear: authenticity sells. Cultural sincerity beats strategy. Sometimes, two artists just need a mic and mutual respect to change the vibe online, and that’s exactly what they did.

As we scroll into July, the lesson is clear: the internet rewards those brave enough to be genuinely themselves, even when that self is beautifully, unapologetically strange. After all, in a world where everyone's trying to go viral, the real power lies in creating something people can't help but share, not because they have to, but because they want to be part of the story you're telling.

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