WTF Happened June 2025

Welcome to the June 2025 edition of WTF Happened 2025! I did this thing in 2024 where I recapped what happened in each month after the month was over. I got a ton of traffic on a few of those posts and thought maybe it was going well and should keep it going! I really like making these posts, so I'm continuing the project indefinitely and just hoping that someday, someone will find this information source invaluable. Without further ado...

Business, World & Health News

Breakthrough in HIV research thanks to mRNA

Researchers have found a method to make HIV visible in white blood cells using mRNA. (Guardian) This is an important discovery for not only those suffering from HIV infections but also future generations which may now have a chance to not worry about HIV ever again. Time will tell if we take this research far enough to find a proper cure.

Egyptian U.S. immigrant arrested over attacking a marching party over Gaza protest

Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, was arrested after a fire-bomb attack on a march in Boulder, Colorado, that was being held in honour of hostages in Gaza. He is said to be an Egyptian in the US illegally after outstaying his visa. (Times)

Disney and Universal sued Midjourney for plagiarism

This could easily be art news as well, but I felt this was more business than art news. Anyway...

Disney joined forces with Universal to sue Midjourney, an AI image generator, for plagiarism. (Cartoon Brew) This came at the same time a bunch of workers unions jointly declared a state of emergency over AI use in Animation. (CB again) The unions planned a protest at Annecy Festival. (Variety)

U.S. supreme court kills hope for deportees

On June 23rd, the U.S. supreme court lifted a judicial order which previously slowed down deportations significantly by demanding a right to due process. (The Guardian)

"No Kings" protests held across the United States on same day as Trump's birthday

June 14th, also known to United States citizens as Flag Day, is also Trump's birthday, and Trump, like all great dictators, forced the military to attend his birthday party despite the date also being the U.S. military's 250th anniversary, a day that should have been honored much differently. Well, on the same day, millions joined a nationwide "No Kings" protest. (AFT) This could be the biggest protest in United States history. (Daily Beast) In Florida alone, over 75 protests were held on this day in various locations under the "No Kings" banner. (USA Today)

Australian reporter shot with rubber bullet at peaceful U.S. protest

A protest in Los Angeles was covered by this Australian reporter named Lauren Tomasi. Watch this video on Bluesky if you want to see it happen on air. The protest was mostly peaceful, but Donald Trump ordered the National Guard to intervene (Reuters) with a likely goal to undermine the protest.

In related news, there was also drone footage of a bunch of police beating on a civilian at the protest with bats and horses! So ugly. Police really are the worst. These kinds of violent acts could later cost LA $100M in settlements. (LAPP)

Israel bombs Gaza aid sites, cafe and school, killing 95 Palestinians

Israeli forces have bombed a cafe, a school and food distribution sites in Gaza, killing at least 95 Palestinians, and attacked a hospital, wounding several more people. (Aljazeera) This is not an acceptable war act. These are civilians. This all happened under speculation of a ceasefire.

ICE denied entry at L.A. elementary schools

"It was the first reported instance of an attempt by U.S. authorities to enter an L.A. public school amid the Trump administration's vows to ramp up enforcement of U.S. immigration laws and more swiftly deport immigrants in the country without authorization." (Yahoo) Good job, schools! Keep up the good fight.

Fordham thinks education will boom thanks to the threat of A.I.

As always, we're talking about A.I. tools taking our jobs, but there was a good article about a potential positive to this from Fordham Institute saying it's possible the A.I. takeover could drive more intelligent and driven individuals into education, which would help drive education to do better. One thing many people don't seem to understand is the old saying, "If you can't do it, teach it," is very accurate for a lot of subjects already, but some subjects are already populated by the most passionate teachers possible, so while I agree with some aspects of the article, I don't think this is as much of a potential boon to society as Fordham's president Michael J. Petrilli thinks. The future is dark and full of terrors if we don't protect jobs until jobs are no longer necessary. Pushing for universal basic income and state-funded healthcare and free college education is the key!

Kentucky to lose 35 rural hospitals, other states also affected

The U.S. Trump administration isn't just making things worse for immigrants. They're making things worse for everyone. They're closing rural hospitals as part of their tax cuts. (KYDemocrats BSky) Fast forward to July and you'll see a lot of media coverage on this topic is now positive with some news outlets, like AOL, claiming it's nothing to worry about but then turning around and also saying the opposite. This kind of news flip-flopping is part of how we got in this mess in the first place.

Trump Crypto Dinner!

U.S. President Donald Trump hosted a controversial "crypto dinner" where 220 of the largest donators got invited to his exclusive dinner party. (WSJ) This is sickening to me that a president would even be allowed to partake in cryptocurrency. Presidents shouldn't have that ability at all. They should be pillars of the community, role models, and not just unwilling to take part in cryptocurrency but also unable to do so even if they wanted to. Unfortunately, we've let this country go to shit, and now, the president just keeps doing whatever he wants with no real consequences. Truly the worst timeline... except... it could and probably will get way worse unless we stop him.

Superior National Forest's fee hike incoming!

We all know things are getting more expensive every day, but fees into the BWCAW, in the Superior National Forest, haven’t increased since 2008. The price would increase from an already arguably high $16 to a whopping $40 per trip for adults and $8 to $20 for youth starting in 2027. (Minnesota Star Tribune)

SpaceX Starship 36 exploded during test

The ship exploded spectacularly. Watch this clip on Bluesky.

Japan's Mount Shinmoedake erupted

On June 22, Mount Shinmoedake erupted in Japan. (ThisIs-Japan) The last time this volcano erupted was exactly 7 years prior. This particular eruption caught Japan off guard with severe air pollution for 2 kilometers due to heavy winds carrying the ash downwind. This volcano was used as an on-site location for the 1967 James Bond movie, You Only Live Twice, as the villain's secret rocket base.

Denmark announced plan to close Windows

Denmark has put in place a plan to phase out Windows OS as part of their infrastructure. (TechRadar) They plan to rely almost solely on Linux and FOSS, and I'm hoping this big step by Denmark helps motivate a wave of Linux adoption that helps move Linux farther into mainstream. The main issue with Linux OSs is public adoption, not a lack of functionality. The more people use Linux and other free software, the more support said software will get and the better Linux will become.

Entertainment News

Celebrity & Music News

Sabrina Carpenter's New Single: Manchild

Sabrina Carpenter released a new single titled Manchild on June 10th. Click here to watch the YouTube release of the music video.

Web & Social News

Bluesky got more share-ability and more notifications!

Bluesky version 1.103 rolled out feeaturing the ability to share posts via DMs. There's now a share button on every post, not just the posts on front page feed. Also, you get notifications about likes and reposts on your reposts now.

Threads updated custom feeds

Meta's Twitter clone that carried over its user base from Instagram years ago has been soldiering forward since then with lots of minor updates here and there which amount to drastic changes over time. The newsworthy change this month is that Threads has a Feeds section now! (Social Media Today) This menu feature first rolled out to the mobile app only but soon became a part of the website layout changes as well.

Internet Archive launched GifCities

Seemingly a play on the classic 90s hosting site, Geocities, GifCities will be a search engine for vintage gif images found on GeoCities archives. (Archive)

YouTube increased age limit for livestreams

The age limit for viewers watching livestreams has increased from 13 to 16 starting in July. (Social Media Today) Additionally, streamers who are under the age of 16 or who feature kids on their streams not obviously accompanied by an adult may have their chats disabled and their accounts temporarily limited.

New & Returning Shows June 2025

Reality & Game Shows

American Ninja Warrior season 17 premiered its first episode June 2nd, 2025. This show was a lot of fun back in the day to see people occasionally ace the courses after so many failed miserably. If you're more into game shows disguised as relationship dramas, Love Island season 7 premiered June 3rd. Or maybe you like reality shows about finding treasure in junk? Storage Wars season 16 premiered June 7th on A&E. Yep, 16 seasons of finding trash in other people's treasure! Scratch that, reverse it.

Animations

Like cartoons? Phineas and Ferb season 5 aired on Disney Channel June 5th. Also, Marvel’s Spidey and His Amazing Friends season 4 premiered on Disney Junior June 16th and released to Disney+ the following day.

Want something new? There's also Wylde Pak on June 6th on ♪ Nick, nick, nick, nick, nick, nick, nick, nick... Nickelodeon! Yes, Nickelodeon still exists! I know some people who haven't watched Nick since Avatar: The Last Airbender, so... yeah, Nick's still going strong. Not just their animation production studio but the channels themselves are still kicking. Definitely worth checking out their new stuff.

Superheroes & Scifi

Marvel's Ironheart released on Disney+ June 24th.

Dramas & Thrillers

Mafia aired on June 19th on Viaplay, a streaming service I never heard of before today that specializes in crime dramas. I had confused this show with Mobland, which aired a couple months earlier on Paramount+. Upon writing this recap, I realized I have a show to catch up on.

The Bear season 4 premiered June 25th on Hulu/FX. I don't know much about this other than it stars Jeremy Allen White, who I had previously known from a show called Shameless. Should I watch The Bear?  

Squid Game had a short season 2 back in December 2024 that ended very abruptly, so when the continuation and series finale, season 3, aired on Netflix on June 27th, it was  a big deal! I binged the final few episodes in just a couple days and can confirm the show got a lot more interesting this season. Kind of like the ending of the live action Super Mario Bros. from 1993, this show ends on a satisfying cliffhanger that likely won't be followed up on but gives us some fun world building potential. This could feed into what happens in the Netflix Houses.

Upcoming Shows

The Summer I Turned Pretty season 3 airs July 16th. I still haven't watched season 1, and it's been sitting on my watchlist for years now. Oops!

Watch Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 starting July 17th if you need more scifi space shows in your life.

Twisted Metal season 2 airs July 31st.

Alien: Earth was teased on social media and in theaters without a release date in some of the promos but the air date was confirmed to be August 12th, 2025, on FX/Hulu. I will be watching this one ASAP! It looks gooooood.

A trailer dropped for Stephen King's The Institute. Based on the trailer, it gives a combination of Stranger Things and X-Men... which to me is a complement. It's set to air on MGM+ July 13th.

Stranger Things: Tales From '85 was teased to be coming out next year with an exclusive sneak peek at the animated show presented at Annecy Festival. (GeekTyrant)

New Movies June 2025

Right at the end of May, Karate Kid Legends came out. It felt like it was directed by an amateur, but it was fun to watch regardless.

Ballerina, a story based in the John Wick universe, had its theatrical release on June 6, 2025.

The live action remake of How To Train Your Dragon released June 13th, 2025 to theaters only. I think this looks good, but it is still very animated and based on a movie that still looks amazing today, so I'm not very motivated to go to a theater to see it. Once it hits a streaming service, I'll check it out.

A fully animated CG movie, Elio, released June 20th and looked really charming. This one is a great one for small kids and people who want something lighthearted.

Love Me premiered on Paramount+ June 16th. This isn't exactly a new movie, but it flew under my radar when it released theatrically in January, so I felt I should mention it. This is a really interesting starring cast for a post-apocalyptic romance: Kirsten Stewart and Steven Yeun.  It looks a bit novel and I think I'll watch this one soon.

On June 20th, KPop Demon Hunters came out on Netflix. I wasn't really aware of this movie until it was basically already out, so there wasn't a big push to market this movie's release, but it's one of the most fun-looking animated movies of the year.

Upcoming Movies

Spaceballs 2 was teased in spectacular fashion with a trailer posted officially across all popular social media platforms. The trailer started with text on a star-filled black screen, saying "Thirty-eight years ago, there was only one Star Wars trilogy." in the style of classic Star Wars films. The trailer continued with more humorous text flying up the screen followed by a beat up Dark Helmet helmet then the vague release window of 2027. The director, Mel Brooks, showed up toward the end of the teaser and yelled the line "We asked what do the fans want ... but instead we're making this movie!"  Mel later confirmed most of the original cast that's still alive is returning to star in this sequel, including Rick Moranis, known to Spaceballs fans as Dark Helmet. No plot details were shared yet, but I'm excited to finally see the sequel to a movie I watched when I was a toddler.

Gaming News

Nintendo Switch 2 sold out and broke sales records at launch!

The Nintendo Switch 2 sold all units at launch and broke the record for most units sold on a console's launch day on June 5th (GameRant). The record was previously held by the Sony PlayStation 4 with one million units sold in its first day. Switch 2 sold nearly three times the number of units as the PS4 and it sold despite tariff scares, which may have helped drive preorders rather than actually scare people away.

Steam OS hit 20,000 playable games

In June, Steam's list of playable games for Steam OS reached well over 20K! (Gaming On Linux)

New video game releases

There were a lot of new releases this month! First of all, we had the Switch 2 come out with a bundled open world Mario Kart! Beyond that, there were some really great sequels released this month to some rather popular IPs, including Deltarune, an official side story to Undertale, for Switch, Switch 2, Steam, PS5, and Xbox.

Upcoming Game Releases

A trailer dropped for Raiders Of Blackveil with a vague release date of Q4 2025. There was a demo released for Steam Nextfest, and the demo seems to have lasted well past that festival event, so check it out!

Bakudo was announced with its first trailer (Gematsu) but no release date, not even a vague quarter or even year was specified. The game looks like an action RPG boss fight rush with pong-like mechanics and floaty hands (no VR, though). I'd love to play it, because it looks very action-packed. Bakudo has a Steam page.

Dying Light: The Beast got teased on June 6th with an official 30-minute gameplay trailer. (IGN) The release date was later announced to be August 22 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. The PS4 and Xbox One ports would be released at an undisclosed later date. (Wikipedia - based on official promo site information)

Virtual Reality News

New PCVR Games/Apps

Below are a few noteworthy VR game releases on SteamVR for June 2025:

Helicopter Simulator 2025 looks gorgeous!

New Meta Releases

Noteworthy Meta Quest releases for June 2025:

Umbrella Up is doing a free testing code thing likely through the rest of July if you join their Discord. Otherwise, the release price is $14.99 USD.

New PSVR2 Releases

Noteworthy PlayStation VR2 game releases for June 2025:

Please note the FNAF title is mentioned again in the upcoming section below.

Upcoming VR Games

Thief VR: Legacy Of Shadow was teased and a store page was put up on both Meta and Steam. They also announced the game would come to PSVR2. The release date is vaguely set to just "2025". I hope it releases the same time on all platforms to give us PCVR enjoyers a chance to be in the hype zone for a big release. I also hope the PCVR version looks way better than the standalone version, but I doubt it'll be much different.

Besiege VR was rumored to be coming out in June, but it still isn't out. Looks like it'll be pretty fun, though!

Five Nights At Freddy's: Secret Of The Mimic was originally supposed to have VR support, but at its release in June, the VR functionality was nowhere to be found in the Steam version. The devs have confirmed they plan to release VR support as a post launch update but are unsure when it will happen. (Steam Community) Sigh.

The wishlist trailer for Virtual Skate came out, and I'll be honest, I'm disappointed by the lack of IK player bodies. We've had IK solutions for VR body presence for years, and I get tired of all the floating hands/feet stuff! Anyway, it was a cool trailer, and I'll probably still grab the game on SteamVR when it comes out on August 21. I'm not super excited for it, but I'm mildly amused by the idea of playing a better VR skateboarding game than VR Skater, which was even more of a disappointment due to its limited mobility options. I hope Virtual Skate offers an open world. That would be pretty sweet.

Elemental Towers was supposed to release in June on Steam but got delayed to August. You can play a demo, though! It looks really good despite the generic title.

Likewise, Cave Crave was pushed back on PSVR2 and Quest from June to July. No planned PC release. This reminds me of a Minecraft server by the same name where it was all about exploring large caverns and dark spaces. This could be a great immersive experience in VR. Look forward to learning more about it.

Stranger Things: Catalyst

Sandbox VR, a worldwide location-based VR venue, is getting a new Stranger Things attraction titled Stranger Things: Catalyst later this year. (UploadVR) It's weird how many Stranger Things projects there are, but it all seems to be lining up nicely with the release of season 5.

Quest web browser now supports colocated WebXR!

Version 39 of the Horizon OS web browser, released June 4th, had experimental support for colocated WebXR, meaning multiple people in the same space physically sharing the same room. (UploadVR)

Tech News

Turing Award winner warns that AI is lying to us...

One of the “godfathers” of artificial intelligence has attacked a multibillion-dollar race to develop the cutting-edge technology, saying the latest models are displaying dangerous characteristics such as lying to users. (Ars Technica)

12-color 3D Printer kickstarted

The Yumi 3D printer launched on Kickstarter sometime in June and is going into September. It has already reached its funding goal as of this article, but it still has a lot of slots available for some really good rewards. The printer comes in several models and configurations, but the 12-color models are pretty wild to me, and I would love to have something like this in my own maker lab at home. View the kickstarter campaign here. Note that even if you don't back this campaign, it is already successful, and as long as the creator keeps promises and delivers a decent product, we will all benefit from its existence... because it will be further competition in the 3d printer space driving prices down and driving a demand for more features on top-of-the-line printers.

Game Dev & Art News

Godot 3.6.1 finally came out after almost a year of no updates.

Godot 3.6 came out September 2024. Godot 3.6.1, a bugfix update, was pushed June 25th. (Godot) The 4.5 beta has been the focus for most updates since September, so it's nice to see this minor update happen to the stable 3.6 version.

O3DE v25.05 got GameFromScratch approval

I admit a lot of my game engine news these days comes from GameFromScratch's blog and YT channel. On June 19th, he covered a new and drastically improved O3DE game engine. (BSky) He shows good footage of the editor performance and how easy it is to use.

New game engine: Action Game Maker!

Action Game Maker came out June 16th, 2025 on Steam. (Bsky) This engine comes from the same company as RPG Maker and Pixel Game Maker. This engine looks very intuitive for new devs, but if you want to make a 3D game, your best bet is probably either Godot or a purpose-built engine for your genre, like Smile Game Builder.

CodePen Highlight: Random Drawn Underline

I haven't covered web design much, and as a career web developer with a strong background in design, I feel this is a sin I have to rectify.

On June 11th, user OsmoSupply posted this cool hover effect. I really like it, though I think it may be a little over-engineered. Regardless, it takes me back to my Flash days. This was one of the easiest hover effects I could do in Flash other than color, size, and rotation tweens. It's so much more complicated to accomplish this effect nowadays without Flash. Design workflows are awful now. Osmo seems to piggyback off SlaterJS and uses a pathing effect that fills out SVG paths. Back in my day, we just drew a line on a timeline. Times were simpler.

Closing article...

This closing article is from a States perspective, but it's a pretty good redemption moment. A January 6th rioter refused her pardon, saying she didn't deserve it and admitted she was wrong about President Trump and even called MAGA a cult. (CNN) If you don't mind running a million JS sources on CNN, the video on there is worth a watch, because it shows the woman's conviction to truth and justice. I hate that she had to be part of the riots before she saw the error in her ways, but it's nice to see she saw the light eventually.

Praise the sun!  Summer is happening!

It's been a rough and hectic month, and that's why breaks are important. Everyone relaxes in their own way. What works for me won't work for everyone, but I highly recommend a gaming marathon where you play the hardest, most challenging games with no breaks other than sleep and food for several days. If that doesn't work, try a waterpark or a beach. Whatever you do, take care of yourself and don't forget to do what makes you happy.

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