Before you close the book on a truly dreadful 2025, take a moment to start celebrating your failures.
Each year, I dread December on social media. I know those final weeks will resemble a coming-of-age film montage of everyone’s happiest moments. Photo dumps of holidays, engagements, new babies, promotions – just people thriving. And this year, like most years, I just can't relate.
Let me clarify upfront that I’m aware of my privilege. I live in a relatively safe country, and this year, I finally managed to move to London to further my career as a journalist. I’m able-bodied, I’m a cis woman, I’m a straight-passing bisexual. I carry many privileges, and I remind myself to be grateful for them.
The government's obesity lead is calling for restaurants to make women's portion sizes smaller.
But I’m also someone who has struggled with their mental health since the age of fifteen, been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, and spent the past two years on antidepressants. 2025 has been incredibly difficult for me, filled with depressive episodes, breakups, financial stress, homesickness and loneliness.
So yes, I dreaded opening Instagram and seeing yet another engagement announcement – complete with a pun-filled caption and a massive ring. Of course, I’m happy for them. But I'm also consumed by the feeling that I'm the only one struggling.
Until now. For once, social media has beaten the allegations of being purely terrible for our wellbeing and fuelling comparison. Instead, a new trend has emerged among influencers and normies alike: celebrating failures with lowlight reels and fail cakes.
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In a lowlight reel, someone shares the worst things that happened to them that year. Jess Bolton (@human.jess) started the trend with her own ‘fails’, and urged her followers to make their own lowlight reels. She shared her health and education struggles from the year, plus a wicked bruise she managed to get.
Take Alex Light (@alexlight_ldn), one of my favourite humans on the internet and someone who’s helped me open up about my own eating disorder. She posted detailed photos of a nasty tumble down the stairs – very bruised bottom, chipped tooth included. Girlies, we really need to stop being so clumsy! She also candidly shared her multiple banana bread fails, because we can’t all be Martha Stewart.
But it wasn’t all lighthearted. Light also spoke about her struggles with IVF. At a time when everyone else is posting babies in reindeer outfits or stylish bump photos, she reminds us that it’s okay not to be thriving in that area, or any area.
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Similarly, Gwen Adora (@gwenisadorable), an influencer known for spreading body positivity, took a moment to show the vulnerability behind her strong online presence. Her perfect apartment? Cockroach problem. Her huge Instagram following? Work hasn't been going well. Her take-no-shit attitude? She slept with a shitty ex, just like the rest of us.
It’s not about spreading negativity – it’s a reminder that we’re all having a tough time. 2025 was the year of the snake, and it really slithered through our self-confidence and self-worth.
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Another social media trend is the “success cake,” where people stick pins into a cake to mark their biggest wins of the year and narrate them for the camera. Think of the “Hear me out” cakes where people share the unlikely characters they're attracted to — Kovu from The Lion King 2, obviously. But some users, like Katie Ahmann (@katieahmann), flipped the trend on its head with a failure cake. Katie and her besties shared their biggest lows instead, including a torn ACL and toenail fungus – someone get these girls to Boots. They then smashed the cake to pieces.
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If I had a failure cake, it would be piled high. I let the same guy break my heart twice this year – clown behaviour. I had the worst recurrence of my depression in years. I worked harder than ever and feel utterly exhausted. I lost a family member last year and struggled to find a space for my grief. I got turned down by multiple literary agents. I had countless pitches and work opportunities rejected.
Any space left on that cake?
I struggled with weight gain thanks to the antidepressants keeping me alive. I spent the whole summer sweating my arse off as a fun side-effect of that medication. I realised I shouldn't be in a relationship and even deleted all the dating apps off my phone – and yes, I’m a sex and relationships writer.
Then I’d take great pleasure in absolutely destroying it.
So are we finally ready to be online messes? Social media has been slowly moving away from the curated perfection of early Instagram toward embracing literal messiness online. Just think of Alix Earle’s chaotic bedroom aesthetic or the influencer trend of showing the truth behind a photo. Culture is shifting toward authenticity, vulnerability, and anti-highlights – and I am so here for it.
“Not to spoil the ending but everything is going to be OK”.
This year, don’t fall for all the online celebrations. Don’t limit yourself to sharing only the wins – that list is usually much shorter anyway. Instead, grab a group of your besties and dive into all the awful bits: the “nice guys” who turned out to be even worse, the job applications that ghosted you, the gym membership you barely used, the mental breakdown that led to a fringe, the driving license you didn't end up getting, the friends you lost along the way, the hours wasted on dating apps, the 2025 New Year’s resolutions you’re rolling over to 2026… and more.
Whether you film it or don’t, with friends or alone, take a moment to embrace the fails instead of hiding from them. Write your list down, and if you’re feeling dramatic, go ahead and burn it. Allow yourself to be imperfect and loved regardless.
Let’s be real: this year sucked. Stop pretending otherwise.
