WEEKLY TRENDS REPORT Friday 14 August 2026
Pictured: Pexels
Difficult to action
Micro trend
THIS WEEK’S FORECAST Macro trend
The end of Skibidi Toilet?
Average Intelligence
Trending
News you should know
On the up
Cancelled
It’s gonna be big
That’s the tea
Sustainability
Consumer habit
TikTok trend
Be quick
Web Puppies Out of feed, out of mind
Easy to action
Icon Glossary
I don’t need photo ID
Broke TV
FOR YOUR INFO
This week’s dates & microtrends
On our radar Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma – 21 August Mutiny – 21 August Coyote Vs Acme – 21 August Conan O’Brien Must Go S3 – 21 August
Weezer: Weezer (The Gold Album) – 21 August
Image: @danny_leon
Weekly doses of cute
TikTok trends
Tea of the week
I don’t need to carry photo ID, the Spider-Man Steve Lacy end credits edits and ask Mamdani.
Is this the end of Skibidi Toilet as we know it?
UK poo concert, the coolest band, cat plush, his lines in Camp Rock, the best hockey fans and a water balloon fight and traffic cone bear.
What we’re loving
Rising trends
The QVC slip up. QVC has not been this relevant in over 40 years!
Choose your aesthetic. Y3K style or Goth bride or that dang forehead curl.
The million-dollar hunt for Cooper Flaggs card and is baseball ruined? Did our love for Shohei doom us all.
The future
The ‘Bros not getting a single bite’ trend has reached its peak with bro getting a bite.
ICYMI The curious case of Jason Arday. Did anyone manage to get the glasses for the Solar Eclipse? We looked bare mad with a colander over our head.
Phrase of the week “Are raccoons evolving into pets?” We’ll know the answer when someone brings one into a restaurant without a fuss. We’ve tried and got kicked out.
Digi updates Spiralism, a mysterious new religion followed by AI chatbots. Cult? Yep. Scary? Yep. Run? Yep. Disney opens the door for official fan-made content. Imagine Darth Vader doing the renegade with the Hulk. Yum!
Established trends Who doesn’t love a weird themed party? Everyone’s invited to our ‘ranking tap and bottled water’ party. Electric scooters are the most dangerous mode of transport. We brisk walk everywhere; the only injuries we get are light toe pain.
Insights of the week The hottest wellness trend: going to a special “prison” to lose weight. All a highschooler wants is a hoodie rotation.
Can robots save our aging population. Can someone take one for the team and become a mad scientist. We tried but all we invented was the Weber Forecast.
Image: @QVC
The Zucks newest manifesto is unhinged and outof-touch. The future is for “everyone” (if your net worth involves more than 9 zeros).
Stat of the week The reddit beauty index. r/bald made a splash with 1.2 billion views.
Ones to watch Chiikawa the Movie traumatises, everyone’s riding the Wicker train, Spring Breakers 2, saving Dobby’s grave and gene-edited puppies.
Image: @ABC news
TREND TRACKING How some of the trends we’ve identified have evolved in recent months
Web Puppies
Broke TV
Average Intelligence
Image: @fosterkittenohana
Image: @addicted2cinema
Image: @iamtucks
TW: Spiders! Move over micropigs, there’s a new mini animal taking over the internet. That’s right, the spider. One of the world’s most feared creatures has been rebranded as ‘cute’. Now, these aren’t your traditional tarantula. They’re tiny, jumping spiders that playfully hop from finger to finger - very nice, very whimsical. They’ve even got cutesy names like ‘web puppies’ or ‘spooders’. Helping drive the trend is Lauren Taylor, who runs Spider Stuff. After sharing content of her cute houseguests online, she’s since sold about 600 spiders so far this year, as demand surged. However, Peta has warned of the trend, saying that “it’s a “cruel social media fad” and “these complex, sensitive animals belong in their natural habitats – not in a glass prison”. It’s an arachNO from us thanks. We’re more of a sea slug vibe.
With rising inflation, housing costs and food prices as well as shrinking jobs markets impacting disposable income, people are seeking out content that reflects their reality. Enter the rise of ‘Broke TV’, a growing genre that depicts those making ends meet. Everything from The Bear to The Comeback reflect very modern problems like affordability, job security and the resulting impact on relationships and life milestones. Two Broke Girls walked so Broke TV could run! As said in the New Yorker, “In this new era of broke TV, financial precarity isn’t just the backdrop, it’s the central dramatic force”. While aspirational fantasies still have their place, perhaps we’re increasingly jaded to how far removed they are from real life, choosing to balance them with a dose of reality that helps us feel better about our own situations.
Amidst the rise of the AI billboards and print ads, an ex-Google employee bought a billboard to promote his AI site, ChatTJB, where he would answer all the questions himself. Akin to the OG AQA service, all being run on his AI (average intelligence) and his painful fingers, peoples prompts ranged from relationship issues to ‘image generation’. It’s a fun performance art that showcases how the base function of AI, asking any question and getting an answer, fulfills our thirst for knowledge. However the consumer sentiment with all things AI has been completely negative with the most recent OpenAI influencer trip backlash, Hank Green’s over usage of the tool and the data centers protests across the globe. There’s a place for AI but not for the price we’re all going to have to pay. Bring back OG Google, Ask Jeeves or a good ol fashioned ask your librarian.
Trend: Cult of cute
Trend: Harsh reality
Trend: Pre-internet times
This week’s long read
OUT OF FEED OUT OF MIND The mute-ation of relationships
Image: knowyourmeme.com
Image: Forbes
Image: @isitovernow
Image: Vanity Fair
Weber Forecast Insight We’ve reached peak “therapy speak” saturation. Audiences are actively pushing back against wellness jargon and artificial boundary-setting. Platforms and campaigns that encourage healthy, honest dialogue over cold “boundary-setting” will build deeper, long-term brand trust.
Whatever happened to the dramatic, slam-the-door, chuck their clothes out the window breakup? In an era where over 80% of adults obsessively prioritise self-care, relational friction no longer sparks a showdown, it triggers a polite, soft block. Soft blocking—quietly restricting someone online without the nuclear fallout of a hard block—is our new default for dodging awkward conversations. With 72% of Gen Z actively setting digital boundaries, quiet exits offer a gentle buffer against emotional burnout and a reset button for emotional bandwidth. And tech platforms are more than happy to build the escape hatches. Instagram’s ‘Restrict’ and Bumble’s ‘Incognito Mode’ let us passively phase people with total plausible deniability. Meanwhile, platforms like BetterHelp empower users to “protect their peace,“ and wellness brands like Trip CBD package “zero drama” as the ultimate status symbol. Even the corporate world has caught the bug with “quiet firing”—fading communications to avoid tough HR conversations.
But as wellness culture elevates frictionless exits into an art form, psychologists warn we’re misinterpreting the assignment. As Sara Lichstein, LMFT suggests it causes confusion: “It may lead to someone questioning, ‘What happened?’ ‘Did I do something wrong?’ or ‘Do they still care?’ and psychologist Dr. Susan Albers cautions: “The piece that’s often missing is when you only set a boundary that takes yourself into account,” warning how easily self-care morphs into self-centeredness. The cultural catch? By sanitising our social circles into friction-free echo chambers, we trade momentary comfort for long term relational fragility. Digital boundaries are vital, but protecting your peace doesn’t have to mean muting your maturity. In a world engineered for passive exits, the ultimate flex isn’t cutting people off, it’s mastering the lost art of relationship repair.
BRANDWATCH Inspiring creative from around the world
ScottGames x American Dream
Dunkin’
e.l.f Cosmetics x Bubble
Havaianas
Pepsi x Glamlite
Image: @americandream
Image: Dunkin Donuts
Image: @elfcosmetics
Image: @havaianas
Image: @glamlite
Five Nights at Freddy’s is making the leap from screen to reality, with an official Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza set to open in New Jersey in 2027 thanks to ScottGames and American Dream. Complete with animatronic stage shows, arcade games and immersive horror experiences, the attraction is bringing one of gaming’s most beloved franchises to life in eerie fashion. It’s a textbook example of fandom-first brand building, transforming fan favourites into a real-world destination.
Dunkin’ is proving that listening to its fanbase feedback can be just as buzzworthy as launching a new product. The brand has brought back its viral 42-ounce Iced Beverage Buckets, this time with a custom cup-holder attachment to solve one of fans’ biggest complaints: how on earth to transport them in a car. The only thing bigger than the Beverage Bucket? The commitment required to finish it.
e.l.f. and Bubble are giving beauty lovers exactly what they’ve been doing all along: mixing skincare and makeup. The two Gen Z-favourite brands have teamed up on a limited-edition collection of hybrid products, combining hero formulas. Rather than inventing a new behaviour, the brands have productised one that already existed, turning fan hacks into launch-worthy products and giving consumers a sense of co-creation along the way. The best focus group? TikTok and a bathroom mirror.
Havaianas is giving its classic flip flop a fashion-week glow-up with the launch of a kitten-heel version unveiled at Copenhagen Fashion Week. By tapping into one of 2026’s hottest footwear trends while staying true to its laid-back Brazilian roots, the brand is proving that even everyday essentials can earn “It” item status by blending trend culture and runway credibility. Who knew a few extra centimetres could generate so many headlines?
Pepsi is bubbling over into beauty with a surprising collaboration with cosmetics company Glamlite, transforming Pepsi Wild Cherry and Pepsi Vanilla into body care and beauty products that let fans smell like their favourite cola! A brilliantly fun way of emerging from your own industry to tap into fandom culture. From drinks cabinet to bathroom cabinet, Pepsi is taking fandom to a whole new level.
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Pictured: Adobe Stock