Inside 2025’s Biggest User-Generated Trends
An analysis of the most popular trends among user-generated edits across platforms like Tik Tok and Instagram Reels.
For a few years now I’ve been absolutely obsessed with “edits,” a form of user-generated content prevalent across short-form video platforms like Tik Tok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts.
I’ve been trying think of ways that I could cover this topic, and I was never truly sure. That being said, I’ve found some consistency and growth writing another newsletter and thought that analyzing and compiling the most recent user-generated trends would make for a compelling publication.
For the first edition, I won’t go into some deep analysis of what user-generated content is, what exactly edits are- the various types, and so on. This newsletter is focused on uncovering some of the most popular trends in user-generated content.
Anyways, I think I should go ahead and dive into it.
2025’s Editing Styles
Symbiote Style edits
Firstly, I want to look at some of the biggest trends in “edits” so far this year. There are a few in contention but I believe that the most-dynamic of the edit styles was the Symbiote Style.
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This trend features a song titled “SLAVE” by artist UnoTheActivist, debuting back in September of 2023. The lyrics from the hook are “I’m not your average american,” featuring distorted synths and a heavy 808s.
The trend started from user tonyrhodess on Tik Tok, where he used an unidentified clip of two gamers discussing the character specifics for Venom in the game Marvel Rivals, where the song is edited in coordination with the characters emote in the game’s Hero tab. The original video was published in mid-December of 2024 and currently has 17.7 million views, but the trend was then further improved upon. User rep.ulis on Tik Tok used the beginning of that edit, adding some dynamic effects, inserting the lyrics of the song behind the character, while also having a typing effect with character descriptors(this one went hyperviral with 27.7 million views). It’s absolutely been ripped and reposted, but regardless it was the catalyst of the Symbiote Style edits including the audio and various other effects.
If you search “I'm not your average american,” or “symbiote edit,” on Tik Tok, you’ll find a slew of videos with millions of views across all fanbases, IPs, and sports.
Prem Style edits
This trend was named after the user preeminentfx on Tik Tok. Starting with a black screen with great dialogue, the edit widens around a cutout of the specific character/person, featuring high-quality audio and black-and-white video.
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The original video, posted in late January, featured Darth Maul throughout the Star War: The Clone Wars series, with some of his best dialogue. It created a major trend that I still occasionally see, where the original currently has 18.6 million views and 2.5 million likes.
If you search “Prem Edit,” or “Prem Style,” you’ll see hundreds of videos replicating this style.
Life Force compilation edits
Rock artist RJ Pasin/ptasinski created one of this year’s biggest editing trends with his song “Life Force.” The rock artist publishes music through his account and an account meant for edits. This trend has slowly grown over the last several months, developing into one of this year’s most popular editing styles.
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The trend involves his electric guitar, in which a compilation of high-quality videos are edited in coordination alongside the guitar picking. The various clips and images overlay on top of the picks, either using a video or cutout of the subject before the background fills in behind.
The biggest video I could find features anime Black Clover and currently has 16.4 million views and 2.6 million likes, establishing a style that any fandoms could use to showcase beloved characters and projects.
All I Wanted Was You - Paramore edits
This trend is very fresh and has taken the algorithm by storm in the last few days.
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This video features a stage performance from Paramore lead-singer Hayley Williams, where superstar Billie Eilish is encouraging her to hit the chorus from the song “All I Wanted.”
This editing style has been HUGE with sports content, where clearly the original creator of the style is a fan of Russell Westbrook. The original video from pantherssuck0 on Tik Tok currently has 10.6 million views and nearly 2 million likes in only 5 days. That’s a pretty massive trend.
Also, it’s pretty cool that the official University of Georgia Bulldogs Tik Tok (footballuga) replicated the edit style, showcasing how dynamic these trends are as pieces of marketing. The video is here.
If you search “All I wanted was you,” or just ‘Paramore,’ you’ll see dozens of videos from the past few days replicating this style.
Thank you for reading, if you have any suggestions for ways to improve the newsletter, please shoot us a message!
Make sure to check out our TikTok page, where we’ll analyze and rank various user-generated content!
I believe this will be a bi-weekly, or monthly newsletter, depending on how fast trends change and shift on short-form video. Subscribe below to follow our reporting.
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The Symbiote edits were so awesome!