Hard Fork’s 50 Most Iconic Technologies of 2025
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
It's your day to play.
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It's your way to love.
It's your climate to consider.
It's your answer to what should I watch? It's your money to save.
It's your song to analyze line by line.
It's your 10 ways to find a little calm. It's your world to understand.
The New York Times. Find out more at nytimes.com slash your world.
You know what today is, Kevin? Today is like our Friendsgiving.
Yes.
You know, it's like we're getting together to, you know, sort of give thanks to one another and for the rich bounty that life has provided us with. You know, but instead of like sitting down to a big meal, we're sitting down to create content for an algorithm.
Not for an algorithm, for people.
And for people. And for people.
The algorithm, too. They're equally important to us. Everyone's invited to Friendsgiving at Casey and Kevin's house.
Absolutely.
What are we serving at Friendsgiving?
We're serving... First of all, we are serving honey, okay? Second of all, listen, I gotta be honest. I'm a big mashed potatoes guy. I'm a mashed potatoes guy to the point where I won't actually even put salad on the plate during my first pass through the Thanksgiving buffet because I don't need all that roughage taking up space in my stomach when there's such a beautiful, fluffy pile of mashed potatoes sitting right in front of me.
Are you a sweet potatoes guy and a mashed potatoes guy? Or is it one or the other?
I really am just more sweet potato. Because here's the thing. What I love about the mashed potatoes is they're tangy. Because, you know, a good mashed potato recipe is going to have that sour cream in there. And it's just going to give it that little extra kick. Sweet potato is sweet. And I love sweet things. Don't get me wrong. But I'd rather save my sweetness for the dessert. Now, where do you want sweet potatoes?
I like the sweet potatoes. I do not like it when people put the marshmallows on top of it, though. Because to me, that's like a hat on a hat.
That's a hat on a hat.
But I like a good sweet potato. Speaking of sweets, what's your Thanksgiving dessert of choice? Are you a pumpkin pie guy?
I'm a pretty rock solid pumpkin pie guy. You know, am I going to kick an apple pie out of bed for eating crackers? No. Am I going to kick a pecan pie out? No. But give me a little pumpkin pie scoop ice cream. Come on. Yeah. What else are we doing here? Yeah, it's true. Be serious.
Kevin Russo, tech columnist at the New York Times.
I'm Casey Noon from Platformer. And this is Hard Fork. This week, the 50 most iconic technologies of 2025. It's a countdown that you won't want to miss. Unless you do. In which case, turn it off. See if I care.
Well, Casey, we are approaching the end of the year, and you know what that means on Hard Fork.
It is time, Kevin, for our favorite tradition, a countdown of icons. Yes. Listeners to the show may remember that last year after Thanksgiving, we debuted the Hard Fork Iconic 100 technologies. And somewhat to our surprise, because we'd only spent about an hour on it, it did become our most popular episode of the year. Yes. And look, in this business, when you got a hit, you got to keep it going. Yes. And so all year, we have been collecting what we're calling the most iconic technologies of 2025.
Yes. And 100 was, not going to lie, a lot of iconic technologies.
Because we were covering all of human history. Yes.
Yeah. We went back to the fulcrum, you know, things like that. Yeah. But this year... we're going to do 50 iconic technologies of 2025. And Casey, what do we mean by of 2025?
What we mean is they had a big year this year. You know, just because something is on this list doesn't mean we think that it is an unqualified good for society. We're just saying you can't tell the story of 2025 without these icons.
Yes, and we're also going to throw in a few notable omissions from last year's list of iconic technologies. We got a lot of emails about things that we left off, and so we're going to incorporate that because we are here to serve you, our viewers and listeners.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–8:21
2
What is Hard Fork’s methodology for selecting the 50 most iconic technologies of 2025?
8:21–16:17
3
Which technologies make up numbers 50–41 and why were they iconic in 2025?
16:17–44:47
4
Which technologies make up numbers 40–31 and what cultural trends did they reflect?
44:47–1:18:51
Speakers
5 identifiedMore from Hard Fork
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Zuckerberg’s Anti-Doom Fantasy + Finally an A.I. Detector That Works + A.I. Math