In 2025, consumers moved through the world in response to — and rejection of — the digital. But with innovation moving at breakneck speed, a packed cultural calendar and major events in the world of sport, brands may need to reassess their playbooks to capture consumers through the new year.
Here are the key consumer trends to note in 2026.
Unseriousness and darker humor
We’ve seen it bubbling throughout 2025, with the boom in AI slop and meaningless trends like 6-7. But in forecaster WGSN’s 2026 trend report, unseriousness will be a key macro-trend in the new year, across categories. This isn’t just the lo-fi comedy videos we’ve become accustomed to on TikTok; humor in 2026 will be more esoteric than ever, with darker undertones, more silliness and boosted irony.
The rise of brain rot, or low-quality memes, to surrealist AI-generated videos is contributing heavily to this shift. “For chronically online groups, this absurd content helps them process their feelings about the heaviness of the world around them. Brain rot can be a coping mechanism amid socioeconomic uncertainty, as it leans into silliness to unlock collective moments of strategic joy, which is a key emotion as we look ahead to 2027,” says Cassandra Napoli, head of marketing, events and culture forecasting at WGSN. Already, we’ve seen companies from Ryanair to Rhode lean into brain rot content on TikTok. Last month, the latter shared a post of founder Hailey Bieber AI generated into a man, with Rhode under-eye patches on.
But in 2026, this type of content will become increasingly subversive, Napoli says. “This trend stems from the fact that consumers are gravitating toward gallows humor, or dark humor, and comedic relief as a coping mechanism for survival against the backdrop of a polycrisis,” she says.
Brands will lean into dark humor to show they ‘get it’, but will need to strike a balance between being tuned in and tone deaf to serious issues. It’s also a tightrope between consumers who enjoy slop, and those who will grow tired of it. “In 2026, a rejection of AI slop will translate into a renewed appetite for imperfection, humanity and authorship,” says Rose Coffey, foresight analyst at The Future Laboratory. “Consumers will gravitate toward brands that can clearly articulate who made something, why it exists and what values shaped it. Hand-drawn illustration, analog processes, limited runs and visibly human decisions will act as signals of authenticity.”
Digital detox as the definition of luxury
While many consumers will persist with the endless scroll, others will see switching off as the ultimate luxury in 2026. Those who can afford to go offline, will. And brands will need to adapt.
WGSN forecasts the “great exhaustion” to emerge by 2026, which it defines as a collective feeling of fatigue, stress and burnout from the times we live in, coined by researchers at the University of New South Wales, Australia. “As a result, consumers will focus on conserving their time and energy at all costs. They’ll push back against feelings that come from having to constantly cope with disaster, and they will embrace the slow punk movement, where slowness becomes a radical approach to living life more gently and in sync with natural rhythms,” Napoli says.
As we found in our research report Gen Z Broke the Marketing Funnel, What Now?, young consumers, in particular, are craving IRL interactions, as they grow bored of the always-on nature of social media and the relentlessness of social commerce, where they feel constantly sold to.
In 2026, IRL activations will have a calmer, slower mood and focus on this theme. “We’ll see brands encouraging consumers to embrace moments of boredom, which can spark creativity, exploration and guilt-free rest,” Napoli says. “Brands will also experiment with digital detoxing — which will emerge as a wellness practice — to promote mindfulness, and they’ll draw from the power of play to create spaces that cultivate a belonging and meaningful escape IRL without devices.” Napoli references the travel and nightlife industries, where phone-free experiences are increasingly common, or Valentino’s New York listening bar, where users can engage with the brand without needing their phones.
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