Our 2025 Pop Culture Predictions

From Taylor to Peak TV, we guarantee these all will maybe possibly come true.

What will pop culture look like in 2025? We’re peering into our crystal ball to make predictions on what we expect to see happen in culture and entertainment this year.

Jennifer Keishin Armstrong Thinks We’ll Get More Taylor and Less Progressive

Taylor and Travis will get engaged, and it will be all we hear about despite an inevitable constant hum of terrible political news. Justin Baldoni will take a massive career hit no matter what additional information comes out in all the lawsuits, because, as an enemy of Blake Lively, his name is likely now on her friend Taylor Swift's list, underlined, and everyone who crosses her has a career meltdown, embarrassing public revelation, or other terrible luck. (Please see: Kanye, obviously, though he certainly brought his on himself; Katy Perry, even though they made up; and even Dave Grohl, who committed a very unforced error against Swift this year.) And, I'm sorry to say, we're very likely to see a hard turn toward the conservative in our pop culture and away from progressive values like diversity and acceptance.

Kirthana Ramisetti Predicts a New King of Prestige TV

HBO has been synonymous with prestige television in the 21st century. But once HBO became Max and Succession ended, the network’s wattage has somewhat dimmed, while Apple has been on a hot streak with several watercooler, award-winning series in recent years: Ted Lasso, Shrinking, Bad Sisters, Presumed Innocent, The Morning Show and Slow Horses. With the highly anticipated return of Severance after a three-year hiatus, this year Apple TV will officially steal HBO/Max’s crown and be widely recognized as the new home of prestige TV.¹

Hopes masquerading as predictions: A romcom featuring an actor who badly wants to star in one—such as Dev Patel, Lupita Nyong’o, or Daniel Radcliffe’s dream collaboration with Quinta Brunson—will get greenlit; we’ll see the trend of older women headlining their own TV shows continue (and hopefully include more queer and POC women); and Doechii will have an epic, Chappell Roan-esque year in music because of astonishing live performances like this.

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Why Is Nicole Kidman Always on My TV Now?

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Thea Glassman Foresees 2025 as the Year of the Feel-Good Reboot

It is my ardent belief—slash strong hope—that 2025 is the year of the reboot. More importantly: the good, nostalgic ‘90s and early aughts reboot. Give me Ralph Fiennes and Jennifer Lopez in Maid in Manhattan 2. Give me the sequel to Aquamarine, where Emma Roberts, Sara Paxton and JoJo go on a magical, giggly mission in Australia (plus a cameo from those seashell earrings.) Give me—finally!—the Legally Blonde TV series. Fine, this isn't ‘90s or aughts, but I'd also be so in for some sort of Mindy Project Christmas special. Our weary souls deserve it ... even if it is a tepid return to form.

Erin Carlson Predicts the Meteoric Rise of the Other Kelce Brother

So I did an informal survey of some straight guys I know and asked them which Kelce brother they like best. The answer, unanimously, was Jason. Not the one dating Taylor Swift; no, the one who famously ripped his shirt off and partied like an inebriated Viking in the VIP section at Travis' NFL playoff game last year. Almost every week, Jason says or does something cringe or foolish that embarrasses his wife Kylie, and without fail, he gets away with it. Jason is that annoying coworker who gradually grows on you until he becomes something like family. Everyone knows someone like Jason, and his Everyman quality is exactly why he's poised to become an equal star to Travis in the coming months. Men love Jason. Kylie tolerates him. Soon Hollywood will take notice and cast him in a film, possibly an action comedy, and if he displays any acting chops, we could very well have the next Jack Black on our hands. (Perhaps I'm wrong! Feel free to tell me in the comments!)

Saul Austerlitz Envisions Television Will No Longer Be Must-See

2024 was the first year since, I don’t know, 1998, that television felt like something other than the white-hot center of American popular culture. After the dual strikes of 2023, the chant around Hollywood was “survive till ‘25,” but I found myself surprised nonetheless by the clear diminution in the scope and quality of TV this past year. There was still smart, quality programming, as always—the delirious oddity of Everybody’s in L.A. and The Vince Staples Show, the puzzle boxes of 3 Body Problem and Shogun, the quiet beauty of Somebody Somewhere—but it was hard not to feel like we had arrived at the feast long after everyone had already been served. We have now survived until ‘25, but I suspect that the feast will continue to feel relatively meager in comparison to the abundance of the past. Peak TV is over. What comes next will likely offer more and more of the kinds of bland IP tentpoles that ate the movies.

✨One more prediction, except it will definitely come true…

On Jan. 8, we’ll have some news about exciting changes happening with Ministry of Pop Culture. More soon!

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Ministry Book Corner 📚

Here at MOPC, not only are we pop culture writers, we’re also authors! Every Monday, we’re going to recommend each other’s work. And if you’d like to check out all of our books, visit our bookstore at Bookshop.org.

Saul Recommends…Thea’s Freaks, Gleeks, and Dawson’s Creek

I am (shudder) 46 years old. I was last a teenager a comically long time ago. My children are far, far closer to their teenage years than I will ever be again, and yet, I absolutely love teen shows. Thea’s book, a sweeping and deliciously enjoyable look at teen television series from My So-Called Life to Freaks and Geeks to Friday Night Lights, is a marvelous read, and the ideal accompaniment for those of us who love TV about adolescence.

I appreciated Thea’s capacious definition of the genre, including series that might not have been obvious selections, but I mostly gobbled down the book because it was so deeply reported, so thorough in its judgments of the strengths and weaknesses of its seven selected series, and so thoughtful on why it is that people like me, literal decades past their teen years, still find these stories so compelling. Thea has done the research, and it shows: if you ever wanted to know how the creators of My So-Called Life felt about Claire Danes (awed, and a little humbled by her prodigious gifts), or how Friday Night Lights decided not to embrace a storyline where Coach and Tami stray, this book is the place to go.

1. (I say this totally objectively and not at all frustrated that HBO’s much-maligned regime change impacted a potential adaptation of one of my books.)