There are many things we won’t be taking into 2026: high-rise jeans, toxic partners, procrastination and electric scooters. However, one thing we will absolutely be leaving behind in 2025 is the era of nonchalantness. From dating and networking to impressing new people, we seem to have this mentality that mystique takes us further than personality. If I have to go on one more coffee meet-up where we’re both in a competition of who can say the least about themselves, I’ll lose it.
Maybe it’s the rise of perfectly curated social media that fosters a certain level of insecurity, but it seems like everyone is in competition with each other. Spend time watching entertainment, listening to music or exploring niche historical subjects. The act of deriving enjoyment is a part of the human experience. If I derive enjoyment from something, I shouldn’t have to apologize just because of an arbitrary consensus to be nonchalant.
It’s easy to fall into this pattern of depending on what’s popular or trending to help you develop opinions about what to watch or how to feel, but at the end of the day, if you’re not forming those opinions yourself, you aren’t partaking in the human experience. Don’t be the person on the coffee date saying, “Yeah, I guess I don’t really have any hobbies!”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, cringe culture flourished amid widespread uncertainty and fear, as people were thrust into unprecedented circumstances. We were in a limbo of never-ending Zoom calls and had bad news flowing in almost daily. I can appreciate that, though we had to develop a level of desensitization and apathy, we still took time to be human together. People picked up old hobbies they’d dropped years ago like baking, writing, crafting and creating a distinct culture that, in hindsight, could feel awkward reflecting back.
However, I’d argue that though this emergence of uber-cringe culture wasn’t all as flowery and glamorous, it was still pretty fun to be a part of. We had to create pockets of joy because we were thrust into a heightened level of an already globalized form of the internet. There were no rules or handlebars; people liked it when you were weird and authentic and had specific niches that you could explore.
A rare example of a weird niche that gets rewarded is LaKenzie, a content creator otherwise known as Dandelion Crayon Girl. She created a fanbase dedicated to the discontinued Crayola dandelion color and now collects and crafts different things in order to preserve her love for the color. While some may view this as “cringey” or a meaningless pursuit, it’s precisely these weird niches that define who we are. People like LaKenzie have made such an impression in and outside of her fanbase by being exactly as weird as they are, not by trying to be palatable for the masses. No one was ever remembered for taking up as little space as possible in an effort to be convenient.
To be clear, I’m not arguing for a return to 2020-2021 pandemic culture. Obviously, some things are better left in the past. However, the 2020s have tried to overcorrect this a little too hard and there are things we can learn from the past.
In a digital age of fast trends and popular culture, it can be daunting to understand who you are as a person and where your passions lie. Doomscrolling has claimed an untold number of victims. Finding simple pleasures in the ordinary is essential to our existence as humans.
The Dead Poets Society once said, “We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race.”
In 2026, we will have hobbies. We will be crafting, reading, planting, going to the gym, listening to music, baking, watching weird movies and singing to Hamilton without an annoying voice in our head saying, “This is cringe!”
