2026 Trend Prections: Looking Back to Build What Lasts
Every year we talk about what’s “next,” but 2026 doesn’t feel like a year driven by novelty. It feels like a year shaped by reaction. Reaction to speed. Reaction to excess. Reaction to not knowing what, or who, to trust anymore.
These are less predictions and more just simple observations. These are things that are already forming well ingrained patterns. Patterns that impact the way people create, consume, hide, build, and opt out. If 2025 was about re-engaging, 2026 is about choosing what’s worth engaging with at all.
Videos and Photos in Landscape
Vertical content ruled the last decade so thoroughly that we stopped questioning it. Long-form video, short-form video, professional shoots, even casual documentation were all designed with vertical framing in mind. As a result, we have seemed to crop content down to basically a single subject.
Lately, I’ve been noticing a subtle shift. At concerts, at bars, and just out in the world, people are reaching for landscape again. Landscape shows the room, the crowd, the atmosphere. It allows multiple subjects to be in-frame and gives full context; expanding the viewer’s POV.
This is more an observation than a predction, but in 2026 I think landscape content quietly regains popularity. The 0.5 lens and fisheye aesthetic flatten experience into spectacle. Landscape reminds us that experience has edges, surroundings, and meaning beyond the center frame.
In an era of hyper-focus and hyper-fragmentation, content that restores perspective feels grounding. That alone makes it valuable.
The 70s are Back
Major airline crashes, suede collars, and my growing affinity for bootcut denim all point to one thing: the 70s are back. But not just aesthetically.
Culturally, politically, and psychologically, we’re revisiting the same terrain:
1) Economic uncertainty
2) Loss of jobs
3) Wars we have no business being in. Will Nigeria or Venezuela be our modern day Vietnam?
4) Collapse of blind trust in authority figures. Epstein files are our modern Watergate (but this time, does anyone in charge even care?)
5) Heightened media and technology anxiety. As AI is becoming an integral part of our daily lives, whether you like it or not, our trust in what is real and what is a farce will collapse.
6) Punk is back. Anti-culture will cling to and promote lifestyles, art, clothing, etc. that rejects polished and perfect and embraces authenticity and the ordinary.
7) Stories will center on ordinary people with extraordinary stories. We can look to the movie, Marty Supreme as an example.
Face Masks are Back in Fashion
Face masks are re-entering the cultural conversation; not as medical necessities, but as symbols.
Fashion houses like Margiela were ahead of this long before it felt both urgent and necessary. Brands like Margiela, Robert Wun, Balenciaga, and Dior have been normalizing face masks as aesthetic choice rather than anomaly. With facial recognition technology advancing since the early 2010s, the idea of obscuring identity has quietly shifted from fringe to functional.
Kim Kardashian appearing in a cream-colored mask at the 2025 Academy Museum Gala was a signal of and to continuity. Masks allow you to move through the world without slowing down and without explaining yourself. You can heal, hide, protest, and most importantly, opt out of constant visibility.
There’s a clear through-line happening right now between early 2000s activism like the Occupy Wall Street protests and today, where there are shared goals: anonymity for protection and justice for all. Masks now represent control. You can move through the world without slowing down. Without explaining yourself. Without being fully visible. Whether it’s medical, aesthetic, activist, or simply personal, masking allows people to opt out of constant observation.
Blurred Lines
Programs like Sora, Dall-E, MidJourney, and Nano Banana are advancing faster than we are psychologically or lawfully ready for. To be honest, I’m having a lot of fun with them. In 2026, I plan to turn myself into a Blythe Doll online. However, I do understand there are ecological and moral implications involved with AI utilization.
Prediction: I predict that we will see a definitive divide between those who accept AI art and creations and those who value authenticity and human design. But the the lines between real and fake will tangle before we understand fully how to untangle them.
2026 McCarthyism
I know I said the 70s are back and they are but we’re also intertwining with the late-40s to mid-50s.
McCarthyism was easy to ‘define’ in a sense because it was based around outing Communists; a group of people who support an ideology that is inherently anti-capitalism. Of course, it was an easy way to ‘mark’ someone you didn’t like by claiming they were a Communist. However, today the way you get on the Professor Watchlist seems even more uncertain. The TPSUA Professor Watchlist is vague, making its purpose murky and more dangerous.
From their website:
The mission of Professor Watchlist is to expose and document college professors who discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom.
Professor Watchlist is a carefully aggregated list sourced by published news stories detailing instances of radical behavior among college professors.
Ambiguity is what makes this moment just as dangerous, if not more than the original McCarthy era.
Influencer Marketing’s Glass Ceiling Finally Shattered
Influencer marketing used to be confined to social media. However, as the industry continues to evolve, it’s evident that there is no glass ceiling for influencer potential. It’s apparent that influencer marketing has expanded beyond just Target hauls, Starbucks menu tastings, and GRWM. From Jake Paul becoming a “professional boxer” to Charlie Kirk becoming a political “martyr,” influencers are doing more than just shaping our shopping habits. In fact, they’re becoming so powerful, they are sometimes more powerful than our world leaders or working for our world leaders. Influencers are swaying nations and shaping ideologies within their digital communities.
Community Building vs Building Followers
In 2024, I talked about the future of influencer marketing shifting from the word, ‘influencer’ to ‘community managers.’ My reasoning? people are tired of being associated with the word, ‘follower’. Follower count no longer signals trust or engagement. In fact, we now assume massive followings come with diluted connection; or worse, false connection (aka bots).
Doorknob Girl on TikTok makes simple videos in an avantgarde way. Showcasing how she makes dried yogurt for ‘Him’, a nameless and faceless character that evokes both fear and joy in herself and her followers. In early 2025, when TikTok’s place in the U.S. was uncertain, she asked her followers to find her on Instagram. In less than 3 months she was able to move around 50,000 followers from TikTok to Instagram. Despite her mass following on both platforms, she still takes the time to engage and interact with her followers, commenters, and observers.
That’s the difference between having followers and building community. Not everyone will follow you across platforms, but when you create a community where people feel seen, heard, and appreciated, you can create a solid digital community that will move with you.
AI
AI is polarizing for a reason. Does using it signal efficiency and innovation? Or does it tell consumers a brand can’t afford human creativity?
I think we’re moving toward a split between two worlds: one rooted in physical, tangible experience, and one that exists primarily online. Some people will choose one. Others, what I call parallelists, will move fluidly between both.
Prediction: Human creativity will become a luxury signal. Hand-drawn art, 100% fully human writing, practical and special effects in film, etc. These won’t be nostalgic choices but markers of taste, intention, and true understanding of what their brand’s audience responds to.
The Pop-Up is Back
In 2024, I predicted that experience marketing will continue to rise in popularity. As reality starts to feel unstable, tangibility becomes irresistible.
Pop-ups offer what algorithms can’t: physical presence, sensory memory, and shared experience with those who love the same things you love. In 2026, pop-ups will be grounding mechanisms designed to unite brand enthusiasts and brand champions.
The real question in 2026 won’t be, “does the pop-up work?” The real question will be: “Is this worth experiencing?”
Digital Real Estate
What if you could create something that lived forever?
Over nine years ago, a YouTuber uploaded a simple video of a fireplace. That video has since made them a millionaire. While it’s always a gamble to build on “rented space,” there’s still real value in learning how to use that space well.
Digital real estate is not about owning the platform but creating things that continue to be used, watched, or purchased long after you’ve posted them.
In 2026, digital real estate will become a major source of passive income. Think custom Canva templates, CapCut Pro templates, or “vibey” YouTube videos people can play in the background for hours and years to come.
Food Waste
Food waste innovation feels reminiscent of the post-2008 era. Necessity was driving creativity and mason jars and wood pallets were trends that redefined survival and reframed it as charm.
Between 2008 and 2012, scarcity quietly reshaped culture. People thrifted because it was practical, “upcycled” wasn’t a buzzword yet, it was how you furnished apartments, built displays, and made things work on your (shoestring) budget. Shipping pallets became tables. Chalkboard menus replaced printed ones. Food trucks and pop-ups took off because flexibility beat long-term risk. Even exposed brick and communal tables were just cost-conscious solutions that just happened to also look good.
That era proved something important: when resources tighten, ingenuity expands.
In 2026, we’ll see that same instinct applied to food waste. Creators like @kendalxmitchell are already treating discarded materials as raw inputs rather than leftovers. Calling herself a ‘regenerative design and culinary artist,’ she turns trash into treasure. In one video, she shows how to turn eggshells into a beautiful vase. Eggshells, which are usually fragile and overlooked are transformed into something functional and desirable.
Constraint breeds creativity. Scarcity breeds aesthetics. Waste becomes material.
And just like the post-recession design boom, the most compelling examples won’t announce themselves with moral language (yet). They’ll exist because they make sense, because they’re useful, and because they’re undeniably well-designed.
The Power Shift
In a year defined by blurred lines and shifting power, the most valuable skill won’t be prediction. It’ll be discernment.
Knowing what to build. What to share. What to own. And what to leave behind.
