The final week of 2025 has become a real-time case study in how modern celebrity runs on momentum: new music drops timed to holiday attention spikes, social-first video releases built for algorithmic discovery, and commerce-driven “events” staged like entertainment.
On one side, pop star Sabrina Carpenter is stacking up radio entries at once—while extending the life of her Man’s Best Friend era with a Christmas Eve bonus-track surprise and a stylized lyric video designed to travel across feeds. On the other, Kim Kardashian is turning holiday content into a full funnel: family-photo chaos on Instagram, high-glam Christmas Eve looks, and a shoppable TikTok livestream that industry watchers see as part of a bigger shift toward social commerce.
Here’s what happened—and why it matters.
Sabrina Carpenter charts multiple radio hits at once
Carpenter’s latest single “When Did You Get Hot?” arrived on the Billboard Pop Airplay chart dated December 27, 2025, debuting at No. 40—a notable signal that the track is picking up momentum at Top 40 radio. [1]
At the same time, her earlier single “Tears” remains on that same Pop Airplay chart, sitting at No. 17 in the same chart week (with a listed peak of No. 6). [2]
For readers who don’t live inside radio stats: Pop Airplay is specifically a radio-driven chart—ranked by pop radio airplay detections, measured by Mediabase and provided by Luminate, per Billboard’s chart methodology. [3]
That combination—a new debut + an older single still holding on—is the kind of overlap labels and programmers love. It keeps an artist’s name in rotation while the audience “graduates” from one record to the next.
And Carpenter isn’t building this run in a vacuum. Earlier in 2025, her single “Manchild” also reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Pop Airplay chart (issue date September 6, 2025), underscoring how central radio has been to her current era. [4]
The Christmas Eve move: Sabrina Carpenter releases “Such a Funny Way” as a streaming bonus track
While “When Did You Get Hot?” begins its radio climb, Carpenter also gave fans something engineered for holiday-week sharing: a bonus track.
On December 24, 2025, Carpenter released “Such a Funny Way” to streaming services, describing it as a “cathartic christmas crashout song” in her Instagram messaging around the release. [5]
The track isn’t presented as a brand-new album rollout—more like a “gift” drop that keeps the conversation moving while fans are online and playlists are in heavy rotation.
A few details that matter for understanding the strategy:
- It’s a bonus track tied to her album era, framed as part of the Man’s Best Friend universe. [6]
- The song was previously offered as a digital download in September, but only later arrived on streaming—an increasingly common “staggered availability” tactic used to sustain interest over months, not days. [7]
- Carpenter paired the drop with a “vintage-style” lyric video, leaning into old-Hollywood styling that’s easy to clip, repost, and recommend. [8]
PEOPLE also notes that Man’s Best Friend (released August 29, 2025) debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, anchoring the stakes of why it’s worth extending the album cycle into late December. [9]
And in a September conversation with Zane Lowe, Carpenter spoke about channeling a “newer heartbreak experience” into the album, describing a mindset shift toward growth rather than bitterness—context that helps explain why this era’s storytelling keeps resonating beyond initial release week. [10]
Carpenter’s chart impact isn’t just a U.S. story
Carpenter’s ability to keep multiple songs moving at once also shows up internationally.
For example, on the Official UK Singles Chart Top 100 dated October 10, 2025, multiple Carpenter tracks appear at the same time, including “Tears” and “When Did You Get Hot?”—a snapshot of how album-era tracks can travel together across markets. [11]
That matters because the “multiple songs everywhere” effect is part of what turns an artist from hitmaker into constant—the kind of act whose releases become default recommendations on platforms and radio formats.
Kim Kardashian’s holiday week: family-photo chaos, high-glam fashion, and a commerce-first livestream
While Carpenter is playing the long game of chart overlap, Kim Kardashian is doing something parallel in the business lane: blending holiday content and marketing into one continuous feed-driven event.
The relatable post that keeps Kardashian trending
In a holiday Instagram carousel that quickly became meme-friendly, Kardashian summarized the experience of trying to get a perfect family photo with one line: “I really tried.” [12]
PEOPLE describes the moment as cute—and slightly chaotic—as Kardashian attempted to pose with her four children (North, Saint, Chicago, and Psalm). [13]
The “gift wrap as brand world” move
Kardashian also showed off a distinctly Skims-coded holiday detail: she wrapped Christmas gifts in red plaid flannel fabric from SKIMS pajamas, saying her daughter North helped pick it out—and noting she was wearing the same print. [14]
It reads like a family moment, but it’s also a marketing lesson: cohesive visuals that connect product, lifestyle, and personal identity.
The Christmas Eve look that keeps the fashion conversation going
And on Christmas Eve, Kardashian went full archival glam in a black-and-silver Mugler gown from 1986, styled with diamonds—proof that even a “smaller” gathering still functions as content. [15]
“Kimsmas Live!”: the TikTok shopping special built like entertainment
The centerpiece of Kardashian’s holiday marketing wasn’t a single post—it was a format experiment.
Skims staged “Kimsmas Live!”, a 45-minute shoppable holiday livestream on TikTok hosted by Kardashian, designed with the vibe of a classic holiday variety show—but optimized for real-time purchasing. [16]
Marketing and retail trade outlets highlighted why it’s significant:
- The event was fully shoppable in real time, pairing “holiday tips,” products, bundles, and surprise guests. [17]
- It was produced with OBB Media and directed by Emmy-winning director Sam Wrench, emphasizing that brands are treating live shopping like “real” entertainment production, not a casual livestream. [18]
- Jens Grede, Skims co-founder and CEO, framed it as a deeper engagement play: livestreaming is a way to meet customers “in real time” while making the experience entertaining and shoppable. [19]
A second, high-level takeaway: TikTok isn’t just where people talk about products—it’s increasingly where they buy them.
Marketing Dive and Retail Dive point to platform and industry stats showing why brands are investing here: U.S. social commerce sales are projected to top $100 billion in 2026 and exceed $137 billion by 2028, according to eMarketer figures cited in the coverage. [20]
And Bloomberg’s reporting (republished by FashionNetwork) adds real-world texture: Kardashian’s livestream reportedly drew around 30,000 viewers at peak, and creator-economy professionals say the U.S. is still early in the live-shopping curve. [21]
In that same reporting, Haley Walsh, vice president of talent at Digital Brand Architects (owned by United Talent Agency), described live shopping as something we’re “only really at the forefront” of—and emphasized the value of real-time connection between creators and audiences. [22]
The unexpected connection between Sabrina Carpenter and Kim Kardashian’s holiday strategies
Here’s where these two seemingly separate stories actually rhyme.
According to Inc., Skims partnered with OBB Media to produce “Kimsmas Live!”—and that same company previously created Netflix’s holiday special “A Nonsense Christmas with Sabrina Carpenter.” [23]
That’s not just trivia. It’s a signal that music-era storytelling and commerce-era storytelling are converging into the same production playbook:
- High-quality, stylized video
- Short-form shareability
- Event-style timing around holidays
- A reason for the internet to talk about it today
Carpenter’s lyric video and bonus-track drop feed discovery and fandom; Kardashian’s livestream and holiday posts feed shopping behavior and brand engagement. Different goals, same attention architecture.
Why this matters for 2026 pop culture
If there’s a theme to take into the new year, it’s that “promotion” is no longer a separate phase from “content.” It is the content.
- For pop artists like Sabrina Carpenter, the win is sustaining multiple simultaneous touchpoints (radio + streaming + video) so that a campaign never has a single “end date.” [24]
- For celebrity founders like Kim Kardashian, the win is turning holiday attention into a fully produced, commerce-native event—and doing it on the platforms where audiences already spend their time. [25]
As 2025 closes, Carpenter and Kardashian are demonstrating two sides of the same modern celebrity equation: if you can control the moment, you can control the narrative—and if you can control the narrative, you can win the chart, the feed, or the checkout.
References
1. www.billboard.com, 2. www.billboard.com, 3. www.billboard.com, 4. en.wikipedia.org, 5. people.com, 6. people.com, 7. people.com, 8. people.com, 9. people.com, 10. people.com, 11. www.officialcharts.com, 12. people.com, 13. people.com, 14. people.com, 15. people.com, 16. www.marketingdive.com, 17. www.marketingdive.com, 18. www.marketingdive.com, 19. www.marketingdive.com, 20. www.marketingdive.com, 21. ww.fashionnetwork.com, 22. ww.fashionnetwork.com, 23. www.inc.com, 24. www.billboard.com, 25. www.marketingdive.com
