The 5 Coolest People (December 2025)
From 5th Place to 1st Place, to Build Anticipation.
By: Jaime Church
5. Joshua From Work
I only ever worked with Joshua once. Never even caught his last name. Both add to the coolness. Joshua looked like Ben Wyatt had bleached his hair and tattooed the majority of his body from neck down. Pink silk pants and crocodile loafers. I think his sexuality might be a mystery to everyone, including himself. Josh didn’t really care about anything important. But I do think he was in the handy habit of making the things he cared about important. I knew he was cool when I asked him a question the evening we were working together. I asked him if he knew where the sticker gun was. He looked up, and calmly told me, “I have 2 pugs. A boy and a girl. Lila and Gracie. I thought they were both girls when I got them, hence the names. But no. One is definitely a boy because a couple months ago Lila got pregnant. Lila gave birth to 13 puppies. It was incredible. I mean, she was incredible. 13 puppies. God, it makes you appreciate mothers. And Gracie was a proud dad, I could tell. Anyway, the day Lila went into labor I was hungover from the night before and so I called in sick and was dog dula the entire day. I sold all the puppies in the end, and made myself a bag.”
We looked at each other for a while. This was his response to where the sticker gun was. And I knew that I may never meet someone so apathetic or genuine again in my life. I think about Joshua every day.
4. Zohran Mamdani
“What I lack in experience I make up for in integrity, and what you lack in integrity you could never make up for in experience.”
I mean, you don’t just pull those bars out of a hat. Zohran, you have my vote. Not that I live in New York or know even a tiny bit of what life is like as a New Yorker, but I do read a fair amount from The NewYorker and I think that counts. Also, not to objectify women, but your wife is a work of art. If you are half as good at being a politician as you are picking women, you will be an incredible mayor. Not that women are simply berries in their likeness to be “picked,” but I trust your sense of judgement far more knowing your wife is an artistic baddie. Like, not to pit women against each other or draw comparisons that have obvious favoritism, but I think Rama Duwaji could clock Erica Kirk on every level, including but not limited to, physical, academic, spiritual, and artistic. Rama and Zohran would be the perfect dinner party guests. I believe this in the depths of my pathetic heart.
3. Bullseye From Toy Story
Why are all the toys in this movie blessed with the ability to speak except bullseye? I know he’s a toy horse, whereas Woody and Buzz are “humans”, but Rex and Mr. Potato head and Slinky aren’t “human” and they can all speak. So why can’t poor Bullseye? Who ripped his power of articulation and expression from right beneath his little hooves? Despite this cruel disadvantage, I would argue Bullseye is one of the best characters of the whole film, dare I say the entire franchise. Can you imagine dedicating your whole life as a toy, or rather, your whole character in a movie, to the success of someone else’s storyline? And be obligated to do so without any sort of communication? And yet, Bullseye does it with style. He has just as much of a personality as the other peripheral toys, with a fraction of the usual tools of expression. Also, his friendship with Jesse? Absolutely stunning. They have the unspoken love that Cynthia and Ariana could never have. They support each other to the bone. That is if they had bones. They support each other to the center of their polyester insides. That is the sort of energy I would like to see in 2026.
2. My Middle School Best Friend
She is still one of my best friends, (full disclosure,) but we did meet in middle school. And nothing is cooler than your best friend from 6th grade. It’s easy for me to say that and then for you to read it and for no emotional resonance to transpire, but then again, I wouldn’t expect you to understand the gravity of the situation unless you had seen her Geometry proofs from 8th grade. We took French together and we both sort of sucked at it but what’s cooler than taking French with your best friend when you’re 14? Nothing. And we both ran cross country, a sport that quite literally nobody gives a shit about (and sort of rightfully so,) but it was cooler than a nudist on an iceberg, because we were doing it. And now that we’re in our 20’s, we get to do cool grown things, like try on all the rings at GoodWill. And swim in pools that aren’t explicitly for our use. And prey on the downfall of the majority of men in the world. And not unlike Zohran strengthening his own aesthetic image for being affiliated with Rama, I do in fact believe that I strengthen my own image by being affiliated with her.
1. God
I don’t mean to be sacrilegious when I put God as #1. But I’ve genuinely been racking my brain as to who makes the #1 cool spot on my list, and I can’t help but feel guilty if I put anyone else, because if I did, that would mean they were above God and wouldn’t that be more sacrilegious? But I also don’t want to put God as #1 out of guilt. If I’m only putting them as #1 because they’re what I think I should put, then I’m being ingenuine. But I don’t think I’m being ingenuine, because God is pretty cool, objectively speaking, like whether you believe in him or her or not. And I’m not sure if I’ve met God or not actually. I think I’d know it if I had, but then again, supposedly their hand is everywhere and it’s up to me to find it. And maybe God would feel guilty taking up space on my list. Or maybe not guilt, but awareness. But this sort of empathy is what makes God God, right? Or maybe not. I wish I was religious enough to base all my reasoning in faith, or practical enough to base all my reasoning in logic! But I bet God is pretty funny. Or at the least have a pretty good sense of humor. And I bet they’d get a cup of Joe with me and understand exactly why Bullseye is the best character. And they’d offer to get the bill for the coffee and I’d say, no no, God, this one is on me, after all, you already paid the price, and then we’d both howl with laughter at my joke, and it wouldn’t be intimidating or confiningly holy or anything. It’d be cool. And we might see Joshua at the coffee shop too, I bet he hangs out there. He’s friends with Mamdani. And of course I know my friend from middle school knows the place, we go there together all the time.
That is my list of the 5 coolest people of December 2025.