36 predictions about culture in 2026
About this episode
The episode features cultural predictions for 2026 from various critics and theorists.
CUJO is a podcast about culture in the age of platforms. Episodes drop every other week, but if you want the full experience, we recommend signing up for a paid subscription. Paid subscribers also get access to our CUJOPLEX Discord and The Weather Report , a monthly episode series where we take stock of where the cultural winds are blowing and tell you what’s rained into our brains. As special treat, you can now listen to our 2025 retrospective with Ruby Justice Thelot for free. Hey pals. Welcome to our first annual cultural predictions episode. To kick off 2026, we asked some of our favorite culture critics, media theorists, filmmakers, technologists, journalists, fashion bloggers and more to send us a voice note with their best guess about where the zeitgeist will take us this year. To our surprise and delight, 34 people got back to us with their predictions. Plus, Andrea predicts the return of club culture (think: film clubs and salons, not dance parties) in response to attention economy fatigue, and Emilie goes long on “elite midcult” in music and movies as a culture-industry counter-reaction to poptimism. Topics range from writer and podcaster Steven Phillips-Horst talking…
More episodes of The Culture Journalist
- The slow cancellation of the future: A Mark Fisher primer
- The experience economy arms race and the end of the recording artist
- Opinionated software: AI and the arts, revisited
- Brooklyn's lost indie decade
- Welcome to the reality exchange
- The network state moment
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the The Culture Journalist podcast page.