TECHNOLOGY
New York Governor Kathy Hochul signs RAISE Act to regulate AI safety
Governor Kathy Hochul has signed the RAISE Act, positioning New York as the second U.S. state to enact major AI safety legislation.
State lawmakers passed RAISE Act in June, but following lobbying from the tech industry, Hochul proposed changes to scale the bill back. The New York Times reports that Hochul ultimately agreed to sign the original bill, while lawmakers agreed to make her requested changes next year.
The bill will require large AI developers to publish information about their safety protocols and report safety incidents to the state within 72 hours. It will also create a new office within the Department of Financial Services to monitor AI development.
If companies fail to submit safety reports or make false statements, they can be fined up to $1 million ($3 million for subsequent violations).
California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a similar safety bill in September, which Hochul referenced in her announcement.
“This law builds on California’s recently adopted framework, creating a unified benchmark among the country’s leading tech states as the federal government lags behind, failing to implement common-sense regulations that protect the public,” Hochul said.
State Senator Andrew Gounardes, one of the bill’s sponsors, posted, “Big Tech thought they could weasel their way into killing our bill. We shut them down and passed the strongest AI safety law in the country.”
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Both OpenAI and Anthropic expressed support for New York’s bill while also calling for federal legislation, with Anthropic’s head of external affairs Sarah Heck telling the NYT, “The fact that two of the largest states in the country have now enacted AI transparency legislation signals the critical importance of safety and should inspire Congress to build on them.”
Not everyone in the tech industry has been so supportive. In fact, a super PAC backed by Andreessen Horowitz and OpenAI President Greg Brockman is looking to challenge Assemblyman Alex Bores, who co-sponsored the bill with Gounardes. (Bores told journalists, “I appreciate how straightforward they’re being about it.”)
This comes after President Donald Trump signed an executive order that directs federal agencies to challenge state AI laws. The order — backed by Trump’s AI czar David Sacks — is the latest attempt by the Trump Administration to curtail states’ ability to regulate AI, and will likely be challenged in court.
We also discussed Trump’s executive order, and the role that Sacks and a16z have played in opposing state AI regulation, on the latest episode of the Equity podcast.
TECHNOLOGY
‘Help! I need money. It’s an emergency’: your child’s voicemail that could be a scam | Scams
The voicemail from your son is alarming. He has just been in a car accident and is highly stressed. He needs money urgently, although it is not clear why, and he gives you some bank details for a transfer.
You consider yourself wise to other scams, and have ignored texts claiming to be from him and asking for cash. But you can hear his voice and he is clearly in trouble.
However, the voicemail is the latest way in which criminals are using technology to defraud people. By taking a tiny snippet of real audio – just three seconds is enough – from a person, they can “clone” the individual’s voice using freely available AI technology. From there, they can make an recording of the synthesised voice saying exactly what they want.
The criminals can record a voice from videos on social media or by calling someone and saying nothing. A victim just needs to respond with words such as “hello, who is there?” to give them material for their hoax.
Oliver Devane, a senior researcher at the online security company McAfee, says this is a sophisticated example of spear phishing, or a personalised, targeted attack.
“Having tested some of the free and paid AI voice cloning tools online, we found in one instance, that just three seconds of audio was needed to produce a good match,” he says.
“Cybercriminals will often source this information from public social media profiles and other places online where people post about themselves, their families, their travels, and so on in an attempt to cash in.
“The cybercriminal is betting on a loved one or family member becoming worried, letting emotions take over, and sending money to help.”
What the scam looks like
A phone call or a voicemail, or even a voice note, will come through on your mobile and sound exactly like a loved one or friend.
They will have been involved in an accident or they may have been robbed or injured. They will be distressed and there will be a sense of urgency.
Whatever the circumstances, they will ask for money. They may not give details of why they need the money but they will say it is urgent. They may ask you to transfer it to an account that belongs to someone else.
What to do
As with many scams, if you get a call or voicemail that asks for money, take a moment to stop and think. Does it really sound like the person you know? Are there strange speech patterns that are not accounted for by the fact that there is an emergency.
Even if the phone number comes up as coming from one of your children, this is no assurance as the number can also be faked.
“Try to remain level-headed and pause before you take any next steps,” says Devane. “Remember that cybercriminals are betting on emotions running high. They will play on your connection to the loved one and create a sense of urgency to prompt you into action.”
Call the person who it seems left the message. They may pick up and be able to reassure you that they are OK. Remember the message has come by phone, so even if there is a real emergency they clearly can reach their device and get a signal.
To prepare for the possibility of such scams, you can set up a codeword between you and your children so you know for sure when they are in trouble.
TECHNOLOGY
The dark days are over! Winter Solstice marks the shortest day of the YEAR – with just 7.5 hours of daylight in Britain
If you’re beginning to grow weary of the dark days, there’s good news – it’s all up from here.
Today is the Winter Solstice, marking the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.
At precisely 15:03 GMT, the sun will shine over the Tropic of Capricorn, making it appear to ‘standstill’ in the sky.
On average, Brits will receive just 7.5 hours of light, although the exact duration will vary based on how far north or south you are.
To put that into perspective, that’s nine fewer hours of sunshine than the summer solstice, which sees Britain enjoy over 16 hours of daylight!
While temperatures will continue to drop, thankfully the hours of sunshine will increase from today.
‘The amount of daylight is at its minimum, and the night is at its longest,’ explained Dr Shyam Balaji, an astrophysics experts at King’s College London.
‘After the December solstice, the days start to get longer in the Northern Hemisphere.’
If you’re beginning to grow weary of the dark days, there’s good news – it’s all up from here. Today is the Winter Solstice, marking the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere
The word ‘solstice’ comes from the Latin words ‘sol’ (sun) and ‘sistere’ (to stand still).
‘It refers to the point where the Sun’s apparent movement north or south pauses before reversing direction,’ Dr Balaji explained.
It occurs because our planet is tilted on its axis, by about 23.5 degrees relative to its orbit around the sun.
This tilt provides different parts of Earth with varying amounts of sunlight throughout the year.
‘During the December solstice, the Northern Hemisphere is tilted the farthest away from the Sun, resulting in the shortest day and longest night of the year for that hemisphere,’ Dr Balaji added.
Depending on how far north or south you are, the length of the day will vary.
In London, Brits will enjoy 7 hours, 49 minutes and 42 seconds of sunshine, while those further south, in Truro, will experience 8 hours, 1 minute and 55 seconds of daylight.
In contrast, people living in John O’Groats – a village on Scotland’s north–eastern tip – will have just 6 hours, 16 minutes and 54 seconds of daylight today.
At precisely 15:03 GMT, the sun will shine over the Tropic of Capricorn, making it appear to ‘standstill’ in the sky
As well as marking the shortest day of the year, today also marks the first day of winter in the astronomical calendar.
This calendar is based on the tilt of the Earth, and sees winter begin on 21 December 2025 before ending on 20 March 2026.
In contrast, the meteorological calendar always has the first day of winter as 1 December, ending on 28 (or 29 during a Leap Year) February.
When does winter start?
Astronomical winter
The astronomical calendar determines the seasons due to the 23.5 degrees of tilt of the Earth’s rotational axis in relation to its orbit around the Sun.
This year, astronomical winter begins on 21 December 2025 and ends on 20 March 2026.
Meteorological winter
Meteorological seasons consist of splitting the seasons into four periods made up of three months each.
By the meteorological calendar, the first day of winter is always 1 December; ending on 28 (or 29 during a Leap Year) February.
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The dark days are over! Winter Solstice marks the shortest day of the YEAR – with just 7.5 hours of daylight in Britain
TECHNOLOGY
Facewatch: The controversial tech that retailers have deployed to tackle shoplifting and violence | Money News
The Christmas period is upon us, and goods are flying off the shelves, but for some reason, the tills are not ringing as loudly as they should be.
Across the country, the five-finger discount is being used with such frequency that retailers are taking action into their own hands.
With concerns about the police response to shoplifting, many are now resorting to controversial facial recognition technology to catch culprits before they strike.
Sainsbury’s, Asda, Budgens and Sports Direct are among the high-street businesses that have signed up to Facewatch, a cloud-based facial recognition security system that scans faces as they enter a store. Those images are then compared to a database of known offenders and, if a match is found, an alert is set off to warn the business that a shoplifter has entered the premises.
It comes as official figures show shoplifting offences rose by 13% in the year to June, reaching almost 530,000 incidents. Figures reported in August showed more than 80% result in no charge.
At the same time, retailers are reporting more than 2,000 cases of violence or abuse against their staff every day. Faced with mounting losses and safety concerns, businesses say they are being forced to take security into their own hands because stretched police forces are only able to respond to a fraction of incidents.
A Facewatch camera
At Ruxley Manor Garden Centre in south London, managing director James Evans said theft had become increasingly brazen and organised, with losses from shoplifting now accounting for around 1.5% of turnover. “That may sound small, but it represents a significant hit to the bottom line,” he said, pointing out that thousands of pounds’ worth of goods can be stolen in a single visit.
“We have had instances where the children get sent in to do it. They know that the parents will be waiting in the car park and they’ll know that there’s nothing that we can do to stop them.”
Gurpreet Narwan is seen at the garden centre while being shown how Facewatch works
Staff members here have also had their fair share of run-ins with shoplifters. In one case, employees trying to stop a suspected shoplifter were nearly struck by an accomplice in a car. “This is no longer just about stock loss,” said James, “It is about the safety of our staff.”
However, the technology is not without its critics. Civil liberties groups have warned that the expansion of this type of technology is eroding our privacy.
Silkie Carlo, director of Big Brother Watch, called it “a very dangerous kind of privatised policing industry”.
Facewatch is seen in operation as retailers look to crack down on crime.
“[It] really threatens fairness and justice for us all, because now it’s the case that just going to do your supermarket shopping, a company is quietly taking your very sensitive biometric data. That’s data that’s as sensitive as your passport, and [it’s] making a judgement about whether you’re a criminal or not.”
Silkie said the organisation was routinely receiving messages from people who said they had been mistakenly targeted. They include Rennea Nelson, who was wrongly flagged as a shoplifter at a B&M store after being mistakenly added to the facial recognition database. Nelson said she was threatened with police action and warned that her immigration status could be at risk.
Gurpreet’s profile can be seen on the Facewatch database
“He said to me, if you don’t get out, I’m going to call the police. So at that point I turned around and I was like, are you speaking to me? Then he was like yes, yes, your face set off the alarm because you’re a thief… At that point, I was around six to seven months pregnant and I was having a high-risk pregnancy. I was already going through a lot of anxiety and, so him coming over and shouting at me, it was like really triggering me.”
The retailer later acknowledged the error and apologised, describing it as a rare case of human mistake.
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A spokesperson for B&M said: ‘This was a simple case of human error, and we sincerely apologise to Ms Nelson for any upset caused. Reported incidents like this are rare. Facewatch services are designed to operate strictly in compliance with UK GDPR and to help protect store colleagues from incidents of aggressive shoplifting.”
The cloud-based technology has critics who argue that it amounts to a misuse of personal data and privacy
Nick Fisher, chief executive of Facewatch, said the backlash was disproportionate.
“Well, I think it’s designed to be quite alarmist, using language like ‘dystopian’, ‘orwellian’, ‘turning people into barcodes’,” he said.
“The inference of that is that we will identify people using biometric technology, hold and store their own, store their data. And that’s just, quite frankly, misleading. We only store and retain data of known repeat offenders, of which it’s been deemed to be proportionate and responsible to do so… I think in the world that we are currently operating in, as long as the technology is used and managed in a responsible, proportionate way, I can only see it being a force for good.”
Rogue retailers exposed in shoplifting crackdown
Yet, there is obviously widespread unease, if not anger, at the proliferation of this technology. Businesses are obviously alert to it, but the bottom line is calling.
TECHNOLOGY
Last chance to see! Spectacular multi-coloured meteor shower will end in British skies tonight
Keen sky gazers will have one last shot to capture a blazing fireball from the 2025 Geminid meteor shower tonight.
The final major meteor shower is expected to dazzle the night sky with up to 150 shooting stars visible every hour.
The difference with the Geminids is that it is caused by debris from 3200 Phaethon, which is not an icy comet but rather rocky, like an asteroid.
The Royal Greenwich Observatory said: ‘The meteors of the Geminid meteor shower are very bright, moderately fast.
‘And are unusual in being multi-coloured – mainly white, some yellow and a few green, red and blue.
‘These colours are partly caused by the presence of traces of metals like sodium and calcium, the same effect that is used to make fireworks colourful.
Geminids meteor showers typically produce up to 120 and 160 meteors per hour at the peak.
And with the crescent moon at just 26 per cent of its normal brightness, keen stargazers should be in for a great view of the approaching meteors.
10 hours of photography to show the Geminids meteor shower over Stonehenge in Wiltshire over two nights
A composite of 480 stacked long-exposure images shows Geminid meteors streaking across the night sky over the Skopska Crna Gora mountain near North Macedonia
A long exposure photo shows a Geminid meteor shower over North Macedonia on December 14
The peak of the meteor shower occurred on December 14, when the shower was most active.
Because of the New Moon rising tonight, it means spectators will have a better chance of seeing the meteor compared to a full Moon, because the night sky will be darker.
This evening, the Met Office forecasts rain and strong winds moving to the southwest, Wales, then Northern Ireland, becoming slow-moving in places. Low cloud and hill fog moving north from the southeast with a little drizzle at times. Driest across Scotland. Rather mild.
Dr Shyam Balaji, of King’s College London, told The Daily Mail: The best time to view the Geminid meteor shower is around 2 am local time when the radiant point is highest in the sky.
‘However, you can start watching from mid–evening onward.’
In good conditions, viewers can expect to see upwards of 100 shooting stars an hour, or one or two every minute.
When viewing conditions are poor, you will be able to see fewer stars in the sky, so it’s important to make sure you find the right stargazing location.
A view shows the Geminids meteor shower streaking across the night sky as stargazers gather at the Valley View of Yosemite National Park in California on December 14
A meteor streaks across the northern sky during the peak of the Geminids meteor shower near Skopje, North Macedonia on December 13
Geminids meteor showers typically produce up to 120 and 160 meteors per hour at the peak
Dr Robert Massey, Deputy Executive Director at the Royal Astronomical Society: ‘With a meteor shower what you want is the widest possible view – you want to be lying down, looking up at the broad panoply of stars, and watching for meteors.
‘The best view is if you’re away from sources of light pollution, so try and get away from at least direct lights in towns and cities, ideally out in the countryside.
‘Obviously you also need a clear sky – if it’s cloudy you’re not going to see anything.’
You should soon start to see short streaks of light that last for a second or two.
Following that, keen fireball hunters will be able to catch the weaker but reliable Ursid Meteor Shower, peaking on December 22.
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Last chance to see! Spectacular multi-coloured meteor shower will end in British skies tonight
TECHNOLOGY
Elon Musk closer to becoming first-ever trillionaire as he marks major milestone | US News
Elon Musk has just gotten even closer to being the first-ever trillionaire after a court reinstated his Tesla stock options worth billions.
According to Forbes’s billionaires index, the Tesla chief executive’s net worth climbed to $749bn (£559bn) on Friday, making Musk the first person to surpass the $700bn milestone.
He is already the world’s richest man, and around $500bn (£373bn) richer than the second-richest, Google co-founder Larry Page, the index reports.
It follows the Delaware Supreme Court’s ruling to reinstate his 2018 Tesla stock options worth $139bn (£103bn), which were rescinded last year.
That year, Musk was awarded a pay package including stocks worth $56bn (£41bn) at the time, but it was struck down in a lower court in 2024 as the compensation was “unfathomable”.
Delaware judge Kathaleen McCormick concluded after a five-day trial that Tesla’s directors were conflicted and key facts were hidden from shareholders when they voted to approve the plan.
On Friday, the state supreme court ruled that rescinding the pay package left the Tesla head “uncompensated for his time and efforts over a period of six years”, and that Ms McCormick’s verdict had been improper and inequitable.
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Elon Musk’s race for space
As is his style, Musk has not issued a formal statement responding to the restoration of his options, but did say in a reply on his social media platform X that he was “vindicated”.
If Musk exercises all the stock options from the 2018 package, his stake in Tesla would grow from about 12.4% to 18.1% of an expanded share base.
It was Tesla’s largest ever pay package, until the electric vehicle company awarded Musk a pay plan worth up to $1trn (£747bn) this November.
Elon Musk dances his way to $1trn
It was approved by 75% of shareholders, but to pay out in full, Mr Musk must achieve five milestones in the next decade:
• Deliver 20 million Tesla vehicles and one million robots;
• Drive 10 million subscriptions to Tesla’s self-driving feature;
• Bring one million self-driving Robotaxis into operation;
• Earn as much as $400bn in core profit;
• Lift Tesla’s market value to $8.5trn.
Under the agreement, Musk will not receive a salary, but meeting all targets would see him receive more than 400 million extra shares in Tesla.
If the company’s value is raised to the target, those would be worth around $1trn. As of writing, Tesla is valued at $1.51trn (£1.12trn).
The world’s smartest human has admitted that God not only exists, but he can prove it through math.
South Korean scientist YoungHoon Kim, 36, said he holds the current record for the world’s highest IQ at 276, an achievement recognized by the World Mind Sports Council.
Any IQ score over 140 is considered ‘genius’ level intelligence, with great thinkers such as Albert Einstein and Professor Stephen Hawking reportedly having IQs around 160.
Kim, an AI researcher and entrepreneur who holds a theology degree from Seoul’s Yonsei University, regularly posts on social media that science can prove God exists and was the starting point of our universe.
On December 11, his latest viral post on Instagram gave a simple message about the existence of God, stating: ‘God is real 100 percent and Jesus is God.’
Kim has also claimed that faith in Jesus has a direct connection to how intelligent, creative, and successful someone can become.
However, the ‘world’s highest IQ person’ has also made some controversial remarks, including that Jesus will return in 10 years and claiming homosexuality is a sin.
In one of his most viewed social media posts, Kim released a three-minute video on YouTube claiming that the existence of God could be proven mathematically with three simple facts.
YoungHoon Kim (Pictured) is allegedly the world’s smartest person, with an IQ of 276. Any score over 140 is considered ‘genius’ level intelligence
‘A line cannot start without a first point. Think about drawing a line on a piece of paper. In geometry, every line has to begin with at least one point. Without that first point, there is no line at all,’ Kim said in a September 4 video.
‘The same is true with existence. If there was never a starting point, then nothing could have ever begun. But we clearly see that life and the universe exist. So, there must have been a first point, the starting point that set everything in motion,’ Kim continued.
Kim then explained that you cannot cross an endless past, meaning that if time had no beginning and went backwards forever, we could never have reached ‘today.’
He compared it to never being able to finish counting down to zero if you started from negative infinity with no first number.
The world’s smartest man concluded by revealing that multiplication shows power must come from somewhere, meaning that if you keep multiplying by one forever, you always stay at just one and nothing new or bigger ever appears.
So, for the universe to start and grow into everything we see, a greater power must have stepped in from outside to create and multiply it all.
‘The only explanation that fits all three is a first cause starting point. Necessary, powerful, timeless, and intelligent. And this is exactly what we mean when we say God exists,’ Kim said in the video that’s been viewed over 218,000 times.
As for his latest post claiming Jesus is God, Kim has repeatedly posted that Jesus is not only God transformed into a man, but was also more intelligent than anyone else who has ever lived.
Kim has claimed that God not only exists, but Jesus is God in human form and his existence can be proven through mathematics (Stock Image)
‘No Einstein. No Newton. Only Jesus is the Smartest Man in the History of the World,’ he posted in November.
Kim was not the first highly intelligent person to claim to have knowledge of the divine.
Chris Langan, an American horse rancher who allegedly has an IQ between 190 and 210, has claimed to know what happens after we die.
The 73-year-old said created a hypothesis called the Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe (CTMU), which allegedly ‘explains the connection between mind and reality.’
He believed that when people die, they transition from one form of existence to another within the computational structure of reality, meaning the consciousness, or ‘soul,’ moves to another dimension that we cannot access while living on Earth.
It’s not clear what that new dimension would look like, or what happens to the ‘soul’ once it arrives there. However, Langan said traditional views of heaven and hell were too simplistic and that the afterlife was more like a new state of being.
Kim has echoed these comments, stating that: ‘If reality is part of something bigger, then death is not the end, but a transition.’
He added that while traditional science believes the brain stops when consciousness disappears, quantum physics has suggested that information never disappears and changes in form.
‘If our consciousness is quantum information it may continue after the body is gone.’
Law firms representing Google and Apple have warned that employees who need a visa stamp to re-enter the United States should avoid leaving the country due to longer-than-usual visa processing times, according to Business Insider.
BI says it has viewed memos from BAL Immigration Law (which represents Google) and Fragomen (which represents Apple).
“Given the recent updates and the possibility of unpredictable, extended delays when returning to the U.S., we strongly recommend that employees without a valid H-1B visa stamp avoid international travel for now,” the Fragomen memo reportedly said.
A State Department spokesperson told BI that embassies are “now prioritizing thoroughly vetting each visa case above all else.”
Salon also reports that “hundreds” of Indian professionals who traveled home to renew their U.S. work visas in December have had their U.S. embassy appointments canceled or rescheduled due to new requirements for social media vetting.
TechCrunch has reached out to Google and Apple for comment. Both companies, along with other large tech employers, issued similar warnings in September when the White House announced that employers would have to pay a $100,000 fee for H-1B visa applications.
TechCabal, Africa’s leading technology publication, has released the inaugural Builders List, its annual index of the 50 most consequential individuals shaping the direction of the continent’s technology ecosystem.
In an ecosystem often dominated by funding announcements and short-lived hype cycles, the TechCabal’s Builders List is built around substance. It is not a popularity contest or a vanity ranking. Instead, the list serves as a rigorous record of momentum, recognising individuals whose work in 2025 delivered measurable, verifiable impact, whether they are founders appearing in the headlines or operators working quietly behind the scenes.
The Builders List spotlights both the highly visible and the quietly influential: founders scaling companies in public view, and operators, investors, and ecosystem architects whose work often happens behind the scenes but is no less critical.
The 2025 cohort reflects the growing complexity and maturity of Africa’s tech ecosystem. Moving beyond a founder-only lens, the TechCabal recognises builders across five categories:
- The Operators — leaders executing strategy and running companies at scale
- The Enablers — investors and ecosystem architects making growth possible
- The Innovators — visionaries expanding the boundaries of product and technology
- The Connectors — organisers linking talent, capital, and ideas across markets
- The Keepers — stewards of institutional memory, policy, and long-term continuity
The Builders List tries to be continental in scope. The 2025 list achieves a sense of Pan-African distribution, featuring builders from across the continent.
Honourees were selected through a multi-stage vetting process combining deep newsroom research with independent validation by an advisory panel of ecosystem leaders.
Candidates were assessed against a strict rubric that included: a clearly defined 2025 milestone, quantifiable impact, innovation, resilience in the face of macroeconomic headwinds, and broader ecosystem influence.
It’s not just Santa people should be looking out for next week as experts say you’re more likely to see an ‘alien’ over Christmas.
In December, the UFO Reporting Centre see a huge surge in UFO sightings with a massive spike on Christmas Day.
Christian Stepien, technical director at the centre in America said the reason for the increased reporting could be due to festive firework and light displays.
Ron James from the Mutual UFO Network told The Daily Beast: ‘We do have a slight uptick twice a year in the summer and around the holidays.
‘There are a few reasons why people might be paying more attention: they might be off work, they’re doing family activities and things they don’t normally do, so there are more possibilities for people to encounter things. Then, of course, there’s always Santa Claus and the reindeer.
‘If there is an uptick, I can understand that because there’s a lot of people out during time shopping and doing things.
‘They might be looking up in the air so I can understand it if there is.’
In 2021, there were a whopping 75 sightings reported on December 25.
File image: In December, the UFO Reporting Centre see a huge surge in UFO sightings with a massive spike on Christmas Day
Accounts of UFOs peaking during the festive period go all the way back to Christmas 1965.
Astronaut Wally Schirra Jr. was aboard Gemini 6 when he spotted an usual ‘object’.
At the time, he stated: ‘We have an object, looks like a satellite going from north to south, probably in polar orbit. Looks like he might be going to re-enter soon.You just might let me pick up that thing.’
Adding to his report, fellow astronaut Thomas Stafford noted: ‘I see a command module and eight smaller modules in front. The pilot of the command module is wearing a red suit.’
Mission control was sent into hysteria until Wally began to play Jingle Bells on the harmonica and revealed it was all a joke.
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UFO expert reveals why you’re more likely to see an ‘alien’ over Christmas
Tinsel, DIY tree decorations, deep burgundy drapes – and Home Alone on VHS. Christmas has gone retro on TikTok, and in people’s living rooms.
The app has reported a surge in Christmas decor videos, with an emphasis on nostalgia as users embrace festive looks from bygone eras. For younger TikTokers, that means the 90s.
More than 8,000 videos have been posted under the hashtag #90sChristmas, celebrating a look that includes multicoloured tree lights, homemade felt ornaments and – in a post with nearly 4m views – VHS tapes of Christmas classics such as the Macaulay Culkin caper.
Macaulay Culkin and Joe Pesci in Home Alone (1990). Photograph: 20th Century Fox/Kobal/Shutterstock
TikTok said Christmas decor videos had increased by 100% over the past 12 months, with commentators saying the emphasis on nostalgia reflects a need for stability in uncertain times.
“There is a sense of inherent nostalgia in these trends,” says Hugh Metcalf, editor of the interior decor website Livingetc.com. “These are not super-contemporary looks. It’s a search for comfort from yesteryear when things right now are a bit more uncertain.”
WGSN, a consumer trend forecasting firm, says the 90s Christmas trend indicates a general rising nostalgia for that decade, which also came across during Halloween as an embrace of “tacky decor” pushed at notions of what constitutes good taste.
Metcalf says TikTok is “super influential” for Christmas aesthetics across all generations, with online influencers having greater sway over festive aesthetics than they do over interior decor trends across the rest of the year, which tend to be the province of design professionals.
“These Christmas trends are for things people have seen and experienced before,” Metcalf adds. “It’s appealing to personal histories and our sense of emotion, a bit of relief from trying to get the newest, most interesting interior design idea.”
A Christmas tree outside the Ralph Lauren store in New Bond Street, London. Photograph: Amer Ghazzal/Shutterstock
Even more popular than the 90s take this year is Ralph Lauren Christmas, riffing on the American designer’s signature looks with deep colours, rich wooden panelling and green tartan prints. TikTokers has also offered tips on how to afford a festive take on the luxury brand if you’re on a budget.
WGSN says the Ralph Lauren yuletide aesthetic represents a broader push for “new classic iterations and traditional vibes” over the Christmas season. Describing the trend as “cross-generational nostalgia”, WGSM says it is manifesting itself in looks like cosy knits, windowsill candles and bannister garlands.
“Explorations of these classic looks are gaining strength even among younger consumers,” says Cassandra Gagnon, a WGSN strategist.
If the late 20th century isn’t distant enough as we peer through the retro tinsel from our 2025 vantage point, then WGSN also reports interest in “opulent antiquity”, including velvet Christmas stockings and tree skirts. It means terms such as “Little Women Christmas” – inspired by the Louisa May Alcott classic – are also trending on the platform.
The Holiday (2006) has also become a decor influence. Photograph: Photo 12/Alamy
Time has also been kinder to The Holiday, a romantic comedy film which received some negative reviews on its release nearly two decades ago but has become a decor influence on TikTok this year as well. Named after the film’s director, the #NancyMeyersAesthetic hashtag has more than 35,000 videos – Meyers also directed Father of the Bride and The Parent Trap – with the Christmas iteration focusing on warm interiors and the traditional festive look seen elsewhere on the app.
But in terms of the soundtrack for the season, another decade wins: the 80s. Last Christmas by Wham! is the most searched Christmas song on TikTok so far this month.