Cows, Bearistas, Labubu, CES and More Trends to Ring in the New Year

Milking the bovine serenade

If 2025 felt like a dog year to you, join the club. The working-stiff hive mind, in the form of Glassdoor, has chosen “fatigue” as its word of the year. How fitting.

There are plenty of industry events and happenings just around the corner—the Sundance Film Festival in its final Park City bow; the cacophonous CES in Vegas; Hollywood’s backslapping run-up to the Oscars; Super Bowl 60–but there’s at least a little downtime between now and then. May you fill it with a Ghoul Log, an erotically-charged hockey drama, digital detoxes and JOMO—unless you plan to be part of the Stranger Things finale scrum. Meanwhile, check out a few trends in the pop cultureverse that should be on your radar for 2026:

Child’s Play

If you’re on the receiving end of a blind box this holiday season, or you recently brawled for a $30 Bearista cup or you’re swanning around in “infantile fashion,” you may be a kidult. And you’re not alone. This trend, brewing in cosplay and trinkets for years, gathered significant steam in 2025 and shows no sign of slowing. The throwback McDonaldland Happy Meals of the summer sold so well that McD’s recently launched a Grinch-centric version, also for adults, collectible toys included. Kith dropped a Pixar “Kithmas” collab of pricey cartoon-character streetwear, while Lego and Build-A-Bear are actively targeting their business-boosting over-18 crowd. And, of course, there’s Labubu (Sony just snapped up film rights and hired Paddington’s director for the project). Looking ahead—and to no less turbulent times in this country—fully grown folks will continue to seek out swag and experiences that “transport them back to childhood,” per Pinterest Predicts 2026 “because looking to the past provides people with comfort.”

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Heartland Heat

Yellowstone was just the beginning of the modern-day cowboy craze, with its influence spanning entertainment, marketing, media, style and travel. With countless spinoffs still to come from that hit franchise, expect a new wave of big and small screen Westerns like a remake of The Magnificent Seven, another season of Netflix’s Ransom Canyon and a plethora of farm-based reality series. Ropers, riders and ranchers are having a moment, with salt-of-the-earth farmers coming on strong. Land O’Lakes partnered with country star Hailey Whitters for “Bovine Serenade,” a recent campaign centered on her acoustic performance in a pasture of dairy cows. Whole Foods predicts that 2026 will be “the year of the female farmer” as brands like Cowgirl Creamery and Painterland Sisters hype their origin stories and women founders. Rustic vacationing is part of this trend, with an Expedia report finding 84 percent of respondents looking for stays on or near a working farm. And the sweetest agritourism-meets-wacky-wellness tidbit: Cow cuddling, which feels like nuzzling up to a “giant fluffy hot water bottle,” is a thing. Think of it as the next-gen goat yoga or sound bath, guaranteed to improve your moooood.

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Let’s Get Physical

Strength training and wearable gadgets weren’t the only trends in the fitness industry in 2025. There was a whole passel of M&As, with private equity firms buying into Crunch, EoS Fitness and 425 Fitness. CycleBar and Rumble blended together, as did a number of exercise tracking app companies, on the heels of 2024’s notable Orangetheory and Anytime Fitness merger. The category will continue to be hot for investors, per Front Office Sports, as increasing numbers of consumers swell the ranks at IRL venues, prompting facility remodels and updated tech. “No one’s talking about Peloton anymore,” analyst Jeremy Hirsch told the pub. The flood of resolution-driven marketing has already started for 2026, including a campaign and yet another rebrand from the post-Chapter 11 Weight Watchers. Look for upcoming ads that will tout brands’ AI and data, community and events, preventative health, women’s wellness and weight management (ie programs specifically for those using GLP-1s). In: empowering, non-judgey messages. Out: before and after pictures.

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