36 predictions about culture in 2026

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Hey pals. Welcome to our first annual cultural predictions episode. To kick off 2026, we asked some of our favorite culture critics, media theorists, filmmakers, technologists, journalists, fashion bloggers and more to send us a voice note with their best guess about where the zeitgeist will take us this year. To our surprise and delight, 34 people got back to us with their predictions. Plus, Andrea predicts the return of club culture (think: film clubs and salons, not dance parties) in response to attention economy fatigue, and Emilie goes long on “elite midcult” in music and movies as a culture-industry counter-reaction to poptimism.

Topics range from writer and podcaster Steven Phillips-Horst talking the end of bright white lighting and a return to warmer, yellower hues, to New York Mag tech columnist John Herrman talking about how prediction markets are coming for politics and political media, to New Models co-host Carly Busta talking about the rise of a neo-oral culture. You’ll find the full list of contributors (with time stamps) below. Sound design and music by Andrea.

Arts & culture (10:30)

Drew Millard on the return of the buzzband

Sam Valenti on no longer complaining that nobody is making good music and listening to music instead

Biz Sherbert on the rise of the beautiful white boy rapper

Tony Lashley on the West London rapper Slew

Mano Sundaresan on the inevitability of somebody releasing an AI-generated or assisted song that gets critical acclaim

Philip Sherburne on the coming mass streaming exodus

W. David Marx on a return to organic and analog aesthetics

Jaime Brooks on the rise of “techno nihilism” as an aesthetic movement

Ruby Justice Thelot on Timothée Chalamet winning an Oscar — and ushering in the era of “theater kid energy”

Javier Cabral on how 2026 will be the year of heirloom corn tortillas — in all the colors of the rainbow

Technology (21:20)

Taylor Lorenz on the coming mass cultural revolt against technology

Lil Internet on how the escalating theological conflict between luddites and AI true believers could spin out into something resembling the 30 Years War

Yuri Rybak on the vertical integration of everything and prediction market traders becoming religious oracles

Rachel Meade Smith on how 2026 will be the year where writers find out if the robots are really coming for their jobs

Jacob Hurwitz-Goodman on a shift in AI discourse toward military and surveillance applications

Mike Pepi on a renewed societal yearning for trad media institutions

Trevor McFedries on how AI advances may actually lead to more opportunities for people with good taste

Carly Busta on the rise of a neo-oral culture

Media (33:15)

Ock Sportello on the death of Twitter as a cultural force

Anthony Di Mieri on the end of the era of shortform vertical video

Matt Pearce on a shift from individualism to collectivism among independent content creators

Harry Krinsky on 2026 as the year of the (antimemetic) stunt

Ben Dietz on the return of low-cost ephemera (zines, stickers, promo CDs) in marketing

T.M. Brown on journalists fleeing Substack

Joshua Rivera on the rise of hyper-niche media and courting “security through obscurity”

John Herrman on how prediction marks will transform political media—and eventually politics

Society (49:27)

Steven Phillips-Horst on the end of bright white lighting

Carolina Miranda on “the trollification of governance”

Devon Hansen on a coming vogue for esoteric spirituality, the paranormal, and the occult

Kieran Press-Reynolds on the inevitable confrontation between Nick Fuentes and Donald Trump

Kevin Munger on the Left finally grappling with the political consequences of declining birth rates

Douglas Rushkoff on how things are going to get weird — in a good way

Gideon Jacobs on how 2026 will be our rock-bottom moment as a species

Luke O’Neil on one single good day

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