There’s something genuinely bizarre happening on TikTok right now. According to NapoleonCat’s latest analysis, the platform’s biggest memes of 2025 aren’t about celebrities or drama or whatever song’s topping the charts.
Instead, millions of users are losing their minds over grainy clips of childhood telly, obsolete technology and completely random objects that somehow trigger a wave of shared memories.
Welcome to the “rare aesthetic” era, where a slightly off-colour photo of a 2003 Nokia or a specific episode of Dick and Dom in da Bungalow can send Gen Z and Millennials into an emotional spiral.
It’s proper nostalgic, but not in that polished, Instagram-curated way. These aren’t the aesthetically pleasing throwbacks you’d see in a Vogue spread.
They’re messy, low-quality, sometimes incomprehensible to anyone who wasn’t there. A blurry image of a Tamagotchi with a dead pixel. The exact texture of a school gym mat. That weird static feeling when you touched an old TV screen. If you know, you know, and that’s the whole point.
The Rise of “Rare Aesthetic” TikTok in 2025
The rare aesthetic trend started gaining serious momentum around June 2025, and by autumn the hashtag had racked up over 2.3 billion views on TikTok.
@commandersmileyyy If anyone knows what can cause bad wrist pain, pls share. Been in pain for nearly 3 years, which is getting progressively worse. Got my results back today. No bone or joint damage, no arthritis or inflammatory conditions, no pinched nerves in my wrists or elbows. Everything is normal. And I’m still in pain. #fyp #chronicpain #wristpain #rareaesthetic #healthcare ♬ Gorof (Elixir) (feat. Sahra Dawo) – Dur Dur Band
What makes it different from standard nostalgia content is its specificity. These aren’t broad “remember the 90s?” posts.
They’re targeting incredibly niche memories: the exact shade of orange in a Teletubbies scene, the sound of a VHS tape rewinding, the smell of those scented gel pens everyone had in Year 6.
NapoleonCat’s data shows that rare aesthetic videos perform particularly well with users aged 18-34, with engagement rates 40% higher than standard nostalgia content.
The comments sections on these videos turn into digital time capsules, with thousands of users validating each other’s hyper-specific memories.
“I thought I was the only one who remembered this,” appears in practically every comment thread, which is exactly why the format works so well.
When Philosophy Meets Primates
While rare aesthetics dominate one corner of TikTok, another trend has users embracing “monkey philosophy”, basically the idea that we should all be more like monkeys and appreciate the simple joys.
The trend exploded in August 2025, with videos using the hashtag #monkeyphilosophy accumulating over 890 million views by October.
@curiousclipztv Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. 1 Peter 5:6-7 #curiousclipsmassfollowing #monkeytrend #philosophy #monkey #relatable ♬ orijinal ses – .
Eating a banana? Peak existence. Sitting in the sun? Revolutionary. The meme format typically pairs videos of monkeys doing absolutely nothing special with captions about how humans overcomplicate everything.
“Monkey doesn’t worry about mortgage rates,” one viral video states. “Monkey eats fruit. Monkey is happy.”
It’s absurdist humour at its finest, but there’s something oddly comforting about it too. Mental health researchers have actually noted that these memes align with mindfulness principles, encouraging people to focus on present-moment experiences.
In a world where everyone’s meant to be optimising their productivity and monetising their hobbies, maybe monkey philosophy is the antidote. Chuck your to-do list in the bin, eat some fruit, sit in a patch of sunlight. Sorted.
Suspicion, Office Lore and the Hyper-Specific Meme Economy
Then there’s the “can’t prove it” meme format, which perfectly captures that feeling when you’re convinced something’s true but have absolutely zero evidence.
@nimpliq #relatablememes #fyp #viral #doakes #dexter ♬ original sound – Ｎｉｍｐｌｉｑ
“Can’t prove it but all Fiat 500s are driven by the same person,” one post claims. “Can’t prove it but every Wetherspoons has the same three blokes in it at 11am on a Tuesday,” says another.
It’s the digital equivalent of conspiracy theories for people who can’t be bothered with actual conspiracy theories.
Meanwhile, “work-bestie lore” emerged as one of September 2025’s breakout TikTok meme trends, creating an entire genre dedicated to the chaotic friendships formed in office environments.
@stevepotter72 When someone asks me about the work bestie I used to work with #workbestie #bestie #worklife #relatable #meme ♬ original sound – Paladin Trev
These aren’t your standard workplace anecdotes, they’re full-blown sagas about the mate who microwaves fish every Thursday, the shared hatred of a particular meeting room, or the time someone accidentally replied-all to a company-wide email and became a legend.
The hashtag has generated over 650 million views, with corporate employees across the UK and US creating elaborate multi-part series about their workplace dynamics.
It’s hyper-specific, utterly ridiculous and somehow universally relatable. NapoleonCat’s research indicates that work-bestie content performs particularly well during weekday lunchtimes and early evenings, when office workers are presumably scrolling during breaks or commutes.
The Inexplicable Rise of “67”
But perhaps nothing sums up 2025’s meme culture better than the fact that CBS News reported on “67” becoming Dictionary.com’s Word of the Year.
Yes, a number. A completely meaningless number that Gen Alpha started using as slang around July 2025, and now everyone’s trying to work out what it actually means.
According to The Guardian’s coverage, teachers report hearing “67” in approximately 80% of secondary schools across England by October 2025, though most admit they have no idea what students are actually saying.
Some use it as an adjective (“that’s so 67”), others as a verb (“stop 67-ing around”), and some just shout it randomly for comedic effect.
Spoiler: it doesn’t mean anything. That’s the joke. Dictionary.com selected it specifically because it represents “the evolution of internet language beyond traditional semantic meaning,” which is a fancy way of saying Gen Alpha’s having a laugh at everyone trying to decode their nonsense.
We’ve reached a point where the absurdity is the punchline, and linguists studying internet slang are genuinely fascinated by how quickly meaningless terms can achieve cultural saturation.
Why TikTok Meme Culture 2025 Is All About Nonsense and Nostalgia
So what’s driving all this? NapoleonCat’s analysis suggests it’s a mixture of collective nostalgia and a desperate need for shared cultural touchstones in an increasingly fragmented internet.
When everything feels a bit overwhelming, there’s comfort in finding out that thousands of other people also remember that specific pattern on a bus seat or the exact sound a dial-up modem made.
The rare aesthetic trend works because it’s collaborative. Someone posts a photo of a random object (say, those plastic chairs every primary school had) and suddenly hundreds of people are in the comments sharing their own memories.
“Ours were blue and one of the legs was always wonky,” someone writes. “Remember how cold they were in winter?” another adds. It’s a way of saying “I was there too” without actually having been in the same place.
Social media analysts note that these trends reflect broader generational anxieties about rapid technological change and cultural fragmentation.
When algorithmic content feeds make it harder to find genuine shared experiences, users create their own through hyper-specific nostalgia and absurdist humour that requires insider knowledge to understand.
As for why Gen Alpha’s embraced something as meaningless as “67,” maybe it’s a reaction against the need for everything to make sense.
Millennials had “random humour” in the early 2010s, Gen Z perfected surrealist memes, and now Gen Alpha’s taking it further by making the joke so inside that it doesn’t have an inside. It’s just vibes and chaos, which honestly feels about right for 2025.
How Creators Can Jump on These Trends
If you’re looking to engage with TikTok meme culture 2025, here’s what actually works:
For rare aesthetic content: Focus on specificity. Don’t just post “2000s nostalgia,” post the exact texture of a Space Hopper or the precise sound of Windows XP shutting down. The more niche, the better. Use audio from the actual era rather than recreations, and let the comments section do the heavy lifting with their own memories.
For monkey philosophy videos: Pair footage of primates doing mundane activities with captions about modern anxieties. The juxtaposition between simple monkey behaviour and complex human problems is what makes it funny. Keep the tone lighthearted but relatable.
For work-bestie lore: Authenticity matters here. These stories work because they’re real (or at least feel real). Don’t try to manufacture drama, just document the genuinely weird dynamics that exist in every workplace. Multi-part series perform particularly well.
For absurdist trends like “67”: Don’t overthink it. The humour comes from the meaninglessness. If you’re a brand trying to jump on these trends, proceed with extreme caution, Gen Alpha can smell inauthenticity from a mile away and they will absolutely roast you for it.
What This Means for Internet Culture
TikTok’s meme culture keeps getting stranger, more specific and somehow more universal. Whether you’re watching monkeys live their best lives, scrolling through rare aesthetics that make you feel something you can’t quite name, or trying to understand why everyone’s saying “67,” one thing’s clear: the internet’s weirdness is the only thing holding us together right now.
These trends reveal something important about how we use social media in 2025. We’re not just consuming content, we’re creating elaborate inside jokes that require extensive cultural knowledge to decode.
We’re building communities around shared memories of obscure children’s TV programmes. We’re finding philosophy in primate behaviour and meaning in meaninglessness.
It’s chaotic, it’s confusing, and it’s probably going to get even weirder. But that’s exactly what makes it fascinating.
TikTok meme trends in 2025 prove that when traditional cultural touchstones become harder to find, we’ll just create new ones out of whatever random stuff happens to resonate. Even if that stuff is literally just a number.