OUR INS AND OUTS OF 2026

It’s funny to think that many view the left as out of touch with reality. To be on the left is to reckon with our material conditions, to have a sense of which ways the winds are blowing, to understand the contradictions of contemporary life. This makes us at Current particularly (even empirically?) well-suited to make our predictions for the year ahead.

Some clear trends emerged from our well-informed hypotheses. We believe the tech backlash will only grow stronger, and that there’ll be a move towards all-things-analog. Think community bulletin boards, in-person shopping, and the like (Places taking cash even gets two mentions). The trappings of adulthood seem to be "in" — we believe suits will make a comeback, as well dinner parties and wisdom more generally. Perhaps it's the Mamdani effect (i.e. the success of a fellow millennial) or just the fact that we’re almost all in our thirties now. We also seem to be getting tougher. Arms are getting toned, gun ownership is in, and comfort is out. A few of us foresee shifts towards localism and away from optimization (protein power, supplements, and the like are all decidedly out). 

Check out the below for our forthcoming material realities and do your own trend analysis ☺︎

Rane Stark, Public Programming Lead

IN: Suits, toned arms, short hair with bangs, experimental music in the mainstream

OUT: Football, photo dumps on Instagram, shag haircuts, Democrats, any food-related fashion (sardine necklaces, etc.)

Padmini Raghunath, Special Features Editor

IN: Multi-lingual albums, neighborhoods, shopping in person, handicrafts, active search

OUT: Doordash, corruption-as-chic, protein

PREDICTION: The internet is breaking and people are going to look more actively for media and entertainment they trust. 

Theo Schear, Video Guy

IN: Love, anything handmade, turducken, being woke, PLEZi

OUT: Hate, AI, turkey, anti-woke, Gatorade

PREDICTION: Donald Trump leaves this realm.

Justin Gilmore, Editorial Board Member

IN: Disciplined belonging, frozen produce, non-committal political extremism, ultra-processed foods as a flex

OUT: Doing bits, cartoonish branding, supplements

PREDICTION: The Bay Area will experience a rise in regional culture wars, especially around tech. It will also bleed into other areas like aesthetics, consumer choices, and the like.

Justine Rose Armen, Culture Editor

IN: Places taking cash, humans, rebellions

OUT: Spotify, canned cocktails, Stanley cups, tooth gems, Labubus

PREDICTION: Jacob Elordi will unfortunately continue to succeed. He's just too tall! 

Zoe Stahl, Editorial Board Member

IN: Braids, craftsmanship, being an adult, pubs or really anything British, hanging out in cars

OUT: Bowls, being chaotic, clowns and puppeteering, shells, CHUNKY shoes

PREDICTION: Bay Area residents will finally dress well.

Gabriel Lopez, Music Columnist

IN: Folk music, gun ownership, suede leather, torrenting, community bulletin boards 

OUT: AI (duh), streaming services, posting, the shoegaze-industrial-complex, 2000s point-and-shoot cameras 

PREDICTION:

Wants: stolen (hacked?) Waymo in a sideshow, AI bubble burst, reinvigorated DIY scene in the Bay.

Prediction: Multiple of my friends get flip phones. 

Myron Angus, Editorial Board Member

IN: Actually dancing at the club, tennis, physical photo albums, home-cooked dinners with friends, small-scale hyper-regional niche art communities and productions

OUT: Dubai, celebrity beefs (nobody gaf), robots, spending a fortune on concert tickets, septuagenarians and older in politics

PREDICTION: We’ll see a lot more media about class war and late-stage capitalism that actually says something. But cynical studios hoping to capitalize on the trend will try to compete with their own hollow fluff, which will be funny.

Sarah Weaver, Social Media Editor

IN: Guest books, taking the bus home from the bar, personal archives, hand-me-downs, headpieces

OUT: Partiful, pop-ups, man-on-the-street videos with celebs, trans-humanism, peace politics 

PREDICTION: The Baggu / BART merch is not the last of its kind that we’ll see. The commodification (and specifically pop-up-ification) of public goods continues. 

Jimmy Wu, Tech Editor

IN: Ineffective altruism, infiltration, cash, vandalism, disposable cameras

OUT: Music snobbery, the AI boom, 9-9-6, agency as a concept, city council

PREDICTION: Tech will descend deeper into barbarism; the silver lining will be the resurgence of the tech worker movement. Better pick a side fast.

Wendy Liu, Tech Columnist

IN: Public transit, talking to people in real life, optimism of the will

OUT: Waymos, DoorDash, dating apps, AI slop

PREDICTION: The tech billboards will be even more obnoxious.

Daniel Tutt, Politics Editor

IN: Bertolt Brecht, wisdom

OUT: Comfort, vacations

PREDICTION: Politics "on the ground" will keep getting better, but politics "in government" hasn't hit rock bottom yet.