What do trends mean in society? Trends have carried and hooked not only the American pop culture climate but also global pop culture too. Trends have been around since before humans were even here, and have expanded from the flapper girls of the 1920’s to jetsetters in the 1960’s to now where there are clean girls. Trends have made a community of people and topics of conversation for ages.
The truth is, trends influence trends until they come back. For example, the 70s and 80s have made a huge comeback in recent years. Headbands, blowouts, and even the style and warm and neon colors of the periods have come back. Their revival essentially came from the trending topics at the time like bold and colorful eye looks from 2010s and “Stranger Things” getting a surge of popularity.
The year 2026 is now three months deep and almost everyone has noticed a decline in the trends of the previous year. “I feel like Brainrot has kind of disappeared from everyone’s minds,” Abigail Scherder (9) said. This spans from Labubus to Italian Brainrot to fashion trends like Bubble Skirts. These trends didn’t disappear suddenly, they slowly faded out as people forgot about them. Just like how people slowly stop wearing a certain fashion trend, or how people stop talking about a movie a year after its release; people just forget about it the less popular the trend gets.
A big part of 2025’s trends was the “brainrot,” Dubai Chocolate, and Labubus. Obviously most of these appealed to the younger generation but some teenagers are often reminded of how fidget spinners and shopkins were the biggest things while they were little.
Sometimes, trends of the past are something where people reminisce on it years later and end up in a resurface of the trend. For example, Y2K fashion has made reappearance since around 2020 and since then it’s become a part of everyday style for most people. The downside to some of these resurfaced trends is the bad things about them that also get brought back, reusing Y2K as an example, a big problem with the time period were eating disorders that a lot of people were influenced into.
“Lately it feels like people are just wearing athletic clothes or their own style, depending on who it is, I guess,” Carson Bell (9) said. In a very complex way, trends make up who you are in a way, subconsciously or not. Some label themselves as a sort of style (grunge, coquette, etc;) and others just go by what they want to wear or what hobbies they have, and even that authenticity as of recent has gotten the label “mecore” across social media.
In the past and currently, when certain people are popular for something bad they did (Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Epstein, etc;) They are often made into a pop culture topic for true crime or “drama” channels. This is harmful because these sites or blogs can easily spread miscommunication or make a joke out of the thing the person did. Often when these people become a “trend” people start treating them like a trend and it turns the situation into something lighthearted.
