Today’s Big Story

The Year’s Best Memes

AI slop and algorithm fatigue threatened to ruin our feeds in 2025. Thankfully, we had 6-7, nachos and Katy Perry.

It seems like 2025 was a tough year. For everyone and everything. Even the memes. As InsideHook points out, “There was something a little bleak about the internet in 2025. It simply wasn’t that funny.”

Sure, there were definite highlights. But there was something off. I’m sure you felt it too. Perhaps watching a short-lived TikTok ban, that many thought to be permanent at the time, happen roughly two weeks into 2025 was a bad omen. But, Joanna Sommer writes, there are “several factors at play in this year’s meme slowdown, one major element being that the feeds where people go to tune into funny videos are now being inundated with gravely unfunny AI slop. It’s a content farm out there. Instead of watching real people being really funny, videos like the tragic clips below became the norm. Even as it feels like it’s come to a boiling point, it’s unlikely that this AI garbage will slow anytime soon.”

But memes will still … meme, right? They are just getting harder to be great. Mashable says it’s TikTok’s fault. The heart of digital culture has migrated to a short-form video platform. So there remain memes of a sort—they're mostly called TikTok trends—but the text-and-image-based memes of years past? Those are harder to come by. Well, that and the Twitter/X devolution. With the platform becoming increasingly difficult to use and less popular, that lifecycle has mostly disappeared.

Still, there’s no escaping some memes. *Gestures with hands* 6-7, anyone? And how many of those Anthropologie rock pranks did we see? Hyperallergic reminded us of all the JD Vance AI art and Katy Perry’s legendary zero gravity moment.

Rolling Stone says many of this year’s memes leaned heavily into the brain rot that’s come with the rise of AI and over-consumerism, though others sprang out of good old-fashioned candid camera moments. Leave it to them to remind us of Kendrick Lamar’s meme-worthy Super Bowl performance. And the greatest bit of slang to come out of Stan Twitter this year … “reheating nachos,” a phrase usually wielded against pop stars to accuse them of lacking originality. Reminds me of the good ol’ days.

Trump Orders Oil Tanker Blockade

The announcement comes less than a week after the U.S. seized an oil tanker in waters near Venezuela

President Donald Trump continue to ramp up pressure on Venezuela on Tuesday by announcing that he is ordering a “complete blockade” of all “sanctioned oil tankers” entering and leaving the South American country.

“Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. He argued that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s government is using oil revenue to finance illicit operations, including “drug terrorism.” NBC News reports that the U.S. has sanctioned three of Maduro’s nephews and repeatedly conducted military strikes against boats from the Caribbean that it alleges are carrying drugs. Tensions, of course, escalated further last week when U.S. forces seized an oil tanker in waters near Venezuela.

Trump’s announcement of a blockade could be the prelude to the seizure of more ships. The Skipper, the large oil tanker that the U.S. military seized Wednesday, was a sanctioned vessel that the administration has said was used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran. The Skipper, which was falsely flagged as a Guyanese vessel, was reportedly carrying about 1.8 million barrels of oil, according to Windward, a maritime intelligence company, which noted in a report on its site after the seizure last week that there are several other possible targets.

Progress for Ukraine War Peace Plan

Zelenskyy says proposals to end the war could be presented to Russia very soon

Could we have an Ukraine peace plan by the end of the year? Possibly. But Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has ruled out a ceasefire by Christmas, saying Russia is likely to reject a new European-backed peace proposal and that Ukraine must be ready to continue fighting. Speaking on Tuesday, Zelensky said a final set of proposals would be completed within two days and handed by the United States to Moscow.

He said Kyiv expected the Kremlin to refuse the plan. Russia has already dismissed calls for a Christmas truce, insisting any pause must meet its demands. President Trump says that the deal is “closer than ever,” but has urged Ukraine to withdraw from parts of the Donetsk region—a move Zelensky rejected. “We do not want to give up our Donbas,” he said. Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said peacekeepers could respond to Russian violations of a future ceasefire.

Across Ukraine, Russia’s escalation of drone and missile attacks has driven up civilian casualties by almost a quarter this year, the United Nations human rights chief, Volker Türk, said on Tuesday in Geneva. In addition to concerted strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, attacks by Russian drones on civilians riding on bicycles, in public buses or in cars has killed around 300 people, he told the Human Rights Council. Summary executions of Ukrainian servicemen by their Russian captors had also risen since the middle of last month.

The Death of Roomba?

iRobot’s collapse marks the end of an era

If you’re of a certain age, you might remember the debut of Roomba in the early aughts. It seemed like the promise of the future we all craved, where robots would perform all the household chores we hated doing. Robot vacuums quickly became a popular household product, and today most people refer to their floor-cleaning bots as Roombas, even if the vacuum picking up crumbs and pet hair was made by Ecovacs or Roborock. But despite its enduring popularity, the company behind Roomba just filed for bankruptcy and will hand over control of its business to its Chinese manufacturing partner, Picea Robotics.

The Verge is reporting that iRobot says it’s business as usual for the millions of Roombas in people’s homes, which will continue to function as expected—for now. But how did the most popular household robotics company fall so far and fall so spectacularly? If you ask former CEO and iRobot cofounder Colin Angle, who stepped down last year, the answer is simple: Government regulation killed iRobot.

And many analysts agree. You see, Amazon was going to acquire the company, but regulators said they planned to block the deal and Amazon dropped its bid. As Spyglass put it: “An American company was stopped from buying another American company, and as a result, that American company went bankrupt and their assets are now being taken over by a Chinese company … and it basically put a Chinese robot in every home.”

The Best Gifts for Men, According to Huckberry

Turn it up.