Amid economic anxiety, government gridlock and political violence, it was often hard to remain optimistic in 2025.
But amid a seemingly unending stream of bad news, The Post’s Lifestyle team did their best to make readers smile — and raise their eyebrows — by reporting on the weirdest and wildest happenings in the Big Apple and beyond.
From AI sexbots and celibate Zoomers to the latest trends in couture and cosmetic surgery, our intrepid team felt no tale was too taboo to cover.
Below are 10 stories that got our city and country talking: read on, relax, and take respite from the doom and gloom that otherwise dominated headlines.
Sexless singles
There was no shortage of sex stories in 2025 — but for many women, there was a shortage of sex.
As The Post reported in October, Gen Z and millennial women are fueling America’s bizarre bonking recession.
Across the country, younger single gals are abstaining from sex like never before — not because they’re saving themselves for marriage for religious reasons, but because they’re fed up with today’s depressing digital dating world and hookup culture.
Mandana Zarghami, 29, told The Post that she purposely did not sleep with anyone for four consecutive years — and men have made her decision fairly easy.
“Hookup culture doesn’t benefit women in any way — it only benefits the man,” the Floridian declared.
“I’m not here to judge, but at the same time, it [hooking up] ruins the part where, when you actually find that person that you want to spend the rest of your life with,” she continued, “it takes away from that special, intimate moment that you have with them.”
What about the men?
Many young women seem hard-pressed to find a good man — and it’s seemingly because they’re all still attached to their mom.
In October, The Post profiled the rise of so-called “hub-sons”— a portmanteau of the words husband and sons: unemployed Gen Z and millennial mama’s boys who live in the parental home and perform domestic duties in exchange for free rent.
“This has been my dream job since I was a little kid,” Luke Parkhurst, 33, told The Post. “My mom is at work right now; she covers everything, and I stay home.
“I do the grocery shopping, cook steak for dinner, clean the pool and fix things around the house.”
Who is having cyber sex?
For many young men — and a fair share of women — the sex recession may be fueled by the proliferation of AI apps that offer sexting services, rendering human touch obsolete.
Elon Musk’s Grok recently allowed users to enjoy X-rated conversations with their AI characters, and our intrepid reporters, Asia Grace and Ben Cost, bravely volunteered to chat up the pervy pixelated personalities.
Grace got steamy with hunky chatbot Valentine, proving fiction can be just as frisky as any real-life encounter.
“Being called ‘babe,’ ‘queen’ and ‘my love,’ pet names that haven’t been directed my way in a while, felt good,” our Lifestyle writer Grace fessed up. “Sending a text without having to play the waiting game or fearing that I’d be ghosted felt freeing.”
Cost, meanwhile, began a digital dalliance with an AI character named Ani — and was left shocked by her specific kinks, including asphyxiation.
“Spicy Ani even invented a sex scene based on her love of ramen, describing the two of us in a ‘big copper tub’ brimming with stock — ‘slurping noodles until our lips meet in the middle,’” Cost wrote.
And it turns out AI bots look scarily life-like
Back in July, The Post took to Times Square to see if both locals and tourists could tell the difference between real beauties and fake bots.
We showed each participant six different images — three snaps of real-life influencers and three of computer-generated AI models — and asked them to guess which was which.
The results were shocking: It turns out it’s extremely difficult for people to distinguish between the genuine and computer-generated.
Not a single person was able to guess all six correctly. Many more failed dismally, showing just how easy it is for software developers to trick even tech-savvy youngsters into believing what they see on a screen is real.
Fashionistas fume over NYFW
While New York Fashion Week was once the most glamorous event on the Big Apple social calendar, it’s now a shell of its former self, according to our September feature.
Clothes are increasingly an afterthought as the event has become a hotbed for wannabe influencers and bizarre brand collabs — and fashionistas are fuming.
“When I was growing up, all I wanted to do was go to fashion shows, be a model or sit there. I was sneaking into every frigging show,” Hayley Corwick, aka Lila Delilah, of fashion and shopping blog Madison Avenue Spy, was quoted as telling The Post in the piece.
“Now, when I get invitations, I don’t feel like taking an Uber there. Even the people in fashion aren’t going to the fashion shows anymore,” she sniffed.
Who are the most fashionable New Yorkers? Kids!
The same month the city’s style hounds mourned the death of cool at New York Fashion Week, parents were spending up a storm to ensure their offspring were looking chic for the start of the school year, The Post reported.
It turns out that tots may be the city’s best-dressed demographic.
“The [national] average back-to-school spending per child is $774,” said researchers for CouponBirds, an online discounts hub, before noting that Big Apple moms and dads are spending approximately $1,348 per child.
However, other moneyed mamas were forking out even more.
Nurka Lucevic, a Queens mother of four, has shelled out $2,500 — an amount she likens to “a mortgage payment” — on choice clothes, name-brand bags and Stanley Cups for her crew, who range in age from 2 to 12.
So, what was hot for adults?
While Big Apple kiddies were toting designer backpacks, The Post reported back in February that Gen Z and millennial style buffs were hightailing it to the Celine store in Soho to get their hands on the $1,200 flared jeans worn by rapper Kendrick Lamar during his Super Bowl LIX halftime show.
“Y2K style is back,” David Thielebeule, men’s fashion director for Bloomingdale’s, declared. “Kendrick’s flared denim and varsity jacket nailed the vibe.”
Celine soon sold out of the fancy, throwback flares, prompting some style-minded shoppers to search out dupes of the jeans.
Rodrigo Calderón, 25, told The Post that he’d snagged several pairs of similar-looking pants for under $100 from local thrift stores.
“Flared jeans are a timeless and iconic choice,” he declared. “I’m glad Kendrick Lamar put them on the spot again.”
More polarizing pants came back into style, too
As The Post reported in August, Capri pants — those truncated trousers last seen on Carrie Bradshaw during the original run of “Sex and the City” — were sported by a new wave of celebrities, including Kendall Jenner, Anne Hathaway and Emily Ratajkowski this year.
Stylist Julie Matos, 48, who owns three pairs, has loved them since she was a kid.
“I remember going on a shopping trip with the Girl Scouts when I was young and buying my first pair at Macy’s,” the Chinatown resident recalled to The Post.
However, others were more critical of the calf-length leggings.
“They look wonderful on Audrey Hepburn … but I hate the idea of them on myself with the fury of a thousand suns,” Elisa Mala, a millennial travel writer who lives in Staten Island and did not want to give her age, recently told The Post.
“And I hate [Capri] leggings with the fury of 1,001 suns!” she added.
Jaw-dropping filler
The Post’s Lifestyle team also conquered the beauty beat, reporting on the hottest cosmetic trends in 2025, including filler for men.
One fulfilled filler aficionado told The Post he spent four figures on the injections to make his mug look more masculine.
“I got jawline, chin and cheek filler,” Queens local Antonio DeVita, 31, a digital marketer, dished on his $7,200 facial enhancement. “It was a bit of a power move — now, when I walk into a corporate setting, I feel more confident.”
Many men are getting the trio of treatments to try to look like Hollywood hunks and other rich, powerful men.
Lara Devgan, a Park Avenue board-certified plastic surgeon, said, “If you look at American presidents or Fortune 500 CEOs, you’ll see that one of the features most men have in common is a strong jawline.”
Devgan told The Post she’s noticed specific trends among ambitious men across the generations.
“Men in the range of 30 to 40 are at the ascent of their careers, in the height of their income-earning years, and they’re looking to enhance the masculine looks they’ve had in their 20s,” said the expert. “Men in their 40s, 50s and older are not only trying to stay competitive in the workforce but also trying to make their outside look as good [or young] as they feel on the inside.”
Alarming ‘Ozempic’ bodies
Earlier this month, reporter Allison Lax gave us the skinny on slimmed-down celebs, some of whom have been using weight-loss shots to attain a goal weight.
“‘Ozempic body’” is the new ‘heroin chic’ in the world of celebrity — and the fact that it’s trickling down to the masses should concern everyone,” Lax declared, arguing that it wasn’t “body shaming” to be worried about their weight.
Whether or not they’re mainlining GLP-1s, Hollywood stars are shrinking. Celebs like Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande are potentially promoting unhealthy ideals of what a body should look like, an “angry and betrayed” Lax declared, writing: “The thinness is alarming, and it could have catastrophic consequences for how younger generations view their bodies — and look after their health.”
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