It's Almost 2025 and Global Tensions Are Rising

Submission 3,360

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About

It's Almost 2025 and Global Tensions Are Rising, also known as 2025 Is 2 Years Away and Global Tensions Are Rising, refers to a meme that forebodes World War III based on the year that the video game Call of Duty: Black Ops II takes place in. The concept was discussed as early as 2019. However, memes referencing the idea predominantly surfaced on TikTok in 2023. Many of the memes used music from Black Ops II as well as a greenscreen template of Gustavo Fring from Breaking Bad.

Origin

Call of Duty: Black Ops II was originally released in 2012.^[1] The video game was set in the year 2025.^[1] As the year 2025 approached, discourse about what might happen in the year started to surface online. For instance, the earliest known discourse about the idea was a meme shared to /r/CallOfDuty^[2] on November 23rd, 2019, by Redditor SolarRay69420, gaining roughly 3,900 upvotes in four years (shown below).

Years later, On February 15th, 2023, TikToker^[3] @xxhellxbatxx posted a Black Ops II meme that had text reading, "It's Almost 2025 And The World Looks Nothing Like Black Ops 2," gaining roughly 215,000 plays and 19,700 likes in eight months (shown below, left). Using the video's sound, on April 24th, 2023, TikToker^[4] @callsignjagermanii posted a video with text overlay reading, "When global tensions are rising and 2025 is 2 years away," gaining roughly 191,700 plays and 36,100 likes in six months (shown below, right).

Spread

Soon after, on April 24th, 2023, TikToker^[5] @johnpasta117 posted video that also used the Black Ops II theme and captioned a video of Gustavo Fring in front of Black Ops II footage with, "When 2025 is in 2 years and global tensions are rising," gaining roughly 3.1 million plays and 407,300 likes in six months (shown below, left). Months later, on October 8th, TikToker^[6] @skellybobton reposted a cropped version of the video, gaining roughly 2.8 million plays and 604,400 likes in 15 days (shown below, right).

Using the video's sound,^[7] many made new memes with the idea, such as TikToker^[8] @idol.kix on October 13th, 2023, whose video gained roughly 5.6 million plays and 937,300 likes in 10 days (shown below).