Things I want to leave behind in 2025

To kick things off in 2026, here are some things I'm happy to leave behind in 2025.

Streamers

I’m happy to see far less from streamers in my 2026. I don’t watch streamers, I don’t know very many of them, yet my timelines are often filled with dudes reacting to things in the comfort of their gaming chair. Other times, they’re mobile, sometimes joined by other streamers, and getting into skirmishes that sometimes breaks into my mainstream news avenue, like recently when Puka Nacua told streamers that he doesn’t believe in CTE or when he was told to do an anti-semitic dance the next time he got in the endzone. I don’t know who watches them, I don’t know how they’re able to earn so much money, I don’t care for their opinions or their reactions. Go away.

AI

I’m AI-skeptic, but not totally anti-AI. I’ve found use cases in my personal life where AI can be quite helpful and that’s just dandy. But there’s a fine line in AI being actually useful and mind-numbingly awful, and it often starts with actually knowing how to use it. The best tip I’ve learned about using an AI is no matter what, it aims to please you. So when it’s bigging you up and telling you are God’s gift to green earth, take that with a pinch of salt.

But I don’t need AI everywhere. It’s not hugely beneficial or helpful in most use cases that don’t involve you doing something that would otherwise involve trawling through Google or Reddit. And it’s particularly awful and useless on Twitter, where Grok has become this entire entity of awfulness that came to the fore already in 2026 with the absolute scandal that it will take any request involving the removal of clothing or the sexualisation of people’s photos without their consent. Before this disgusting escalation, Grok and AI in general has made people stupider, made social media infinitely more worse and totally accelerated it to the point of unuseability, and I’m happy to see far less of it in 2026. Newsflash: I won’t.

Gianni

In a steeped category, Gianni Infantino is probably my Worst Person of 2025. The man leading the great sport of football has managed, in no uncertain terms, to make it all about himself in an effort like no other. Whether he’s sucking up to Donald Trump in the Oval Office, honouring him with the FIFA Peace Award (???), bringing him onto the field at the finale of the Club World Championship, that egregiously stupid looking award for said competition. The reams of horseshit he spews at every turn. That World Cup draw will live long in the memory as one of the worst and most excruciating things I’ve ever had to sit through.

The thing is, it’s a World Cup year. IN AMERICA. There will be more Gianni, more Trump, more Gianni and Trump. Please. Make it stop.

Oversized Drinking Vessels

Why has the simple act of water intake become a thing? Water bottles have become an extension of people’s identity. There’s several colours, styles, shapes and ultra-massive sizes to choose from. Water has been drank since the Neanderthals, it was probably the first thing that became a thing when they realised they could consume this nectar without getting poisoned or experiencing the overbearing taste of salt.

Just get a decent bottle that doesn’t leak and drink from the shaggin’ thing, not one that needs it’s own check-in tag.

Hyrox

Look, fitness is good. Trying to maintain longevity in life and avoid the risk of heart disease and bad things happening is undoubtedly good. Running, sure. Gym, go for it. Marathons and the rise of organised races, park runs, Run Clubs, all that manner of outdoorsy forced fun and desire for human connection, absolutely.

But I draw the line at Hyrox - specifically the marketing and promotion of the endeavour. You’re running about a warehouse, pushing sleds and throwing around medicine balls. It’s crossfit and yet why do I have to watch so much of it on my timelines? Go on, get your medal, but I don’t think anyone is going to regret on their death bed doing one less Hyrox.

Bad Television

2025 seemed specifically bad for television and I think we’ve largely jumped the shark with streaming sites and production companies pumping incessant amounts of bad television just to fill their waves. Adolescence was a 2025 thing and that feels like forever ago, and it was good in the moment and had a phenomenal message, discussed in parliament and schools and so on, and the one-shot takes were amazing.

But other than that, it’s hard to find too much that moved me. I definitely overexpected from Severance and the third season kind of just came and went. The White Lotus was terrible. The Bear hasn’t returned to the heights of season two, granted I liked it better than a lot of the reviews. Dept Q. was one of the better things on Netflix, while Slow Horses maintained a high floor with that new series.

And rounding it off with Pluribus which was just kind of… there. It definitely didn’t feel like a great year for television. When a reality show, The Traitors, is topping or shortlisting on most lists, you know you’re in trouble.

The Overlap

I could probably have six different categories of different areas of football content, punditry and television coverage I’d like to change in 2026 or leave behind in 2025, and that is something that I’ll probably tease out in a longer post at some point. It might be unfair to label The Overlap specifically on this one, but I’m quite content with leaving this cabal of guys behind. The oversaturation of Gary Neville, Jamie Carragher, and I’m sorry to do this to you, but Ian Wright and Roy Keane as well, to my ears and eyes has just become too much.

At least that’s somewhat avoidable, granted it’s probably the most virable podcast in football and clipsharing is inescapable when Roy Does Something. But television coverage is altogether harder to avoid for me as I tend to watch a lot of Premier League football. And it is terrible. Putrid. Awful. The format needs to change, the approach, the creativity, the blandness. It’s worse than ever in my opinion, over-polished within an inch of its life and yet still just so terrible.

Jake Paul

Arguably in the streamer category, but this one has a particular intersection with sport that needs to be consigned to 2025, never to be seen again. And that’s Jake Paul the boxer, Jake Paul the promoter, YouTubers and non-boxers boxing, any combative performance not involving two people who have actually trained and dedicated their life to being the best at this particular thing. I’m not a huge boxing fan and this sort of carry on has undoubtedly pushed me further and further away from it. It clearly has a market and that probably is a reason why streamers are as big as they are and why Grok AI is used so potently by idiots — this venn diagram is pretty big, if not just one huge circle.

Temu

And that ilk can firmly stay in 2026. When I moved house a couple of years back we used the cheap and cheerful Chinese overproduction site to source some households things. Not a single one of those items are still in use, and each usage was reeped with the miserable thought that I and I alone were responsible for this stupid plastic thing being shipped half-way around the world, just because I was too cheap to spend an extra couple of euros in Mr. Price or Dealz.

Temu, their incessant ads, it’s silly coupon thing and the intolerable means of navigating the site can be gone.

Doomscrolling

A lot of my problems come from being unable to disconnect from my phone. If I could just consign doomscrolling to 2025 then life would be far chirpier, happier and these kind of lists not a thing because I’d have less of a reason to be mad. I know it would make my life infinitely better and my mental health indestructible. Doomscrolling, I so badly want to leave you in 20…. *swipes on*

Triple H

I don’t like to advertise it too widely, hence why this is last in my list. But I’m a wrestling fan. And I’m totally fine with leaving Paul Levesque in 2025 along with John Cena’s utterly dreadful retirement run. That heel turn with The Rock against Cody Rhodes will go down as one of the worst booking decisions of all time once the dust settles. The fact they patted themselves on the back so proudly on Netflix for all to see, pulling back the curtain of how the whole idea came to be, makes it a million times worse.

Triple H is awful. He can’t book wrestling. You, sir, can suck it and stay in 2025.