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.

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.

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.