• by Sarah Mahoney , 4 hours ago

Pinterest’s latest trend report finds that — irony noted — consumers are fighting trends. Gen Z, in particular, is declaring the death of “the mainstream.”

In a social-media landscape increasingly steered by marketers, Pinterest’s annual forecast works in reverse, pulling insights from billions of offbeat searches to assemble a slightly anarchic view of what comes next. “With 91% of Gen Z declaring ‘the mainstream’ is officially over, we’re living through a fundamental shift in how people try on trends,” the report says. “It’s not about following the crowd anymore. It’s about taking what’s popular and turning it into something unique.”

The 2026 outlook clusters around themes of nonconformity, self-preservation and escapism. Pinterest points to rising searches tied to emotional comfort and belonging, including “Gimme Gummy,” a craving for soft, ASMR-adjacent textures in everything from candy to rubberized nail art to bendy phone cases.

The platform also calls out “Throwback Kid,” a step past Gen Z’s ‘90s fixation into ‘60s and ‘70s toys and kids’ fashion. And “Pen Pals” captures a jump in analog affection, with searches for “cute stamps” up 105%, “handwritten letters” up 45% and “snail mail gifts” up 110%.

Other subcultures are mutating quickly: Poetcore (turtlenecks, capes, messenger satchels), Glitchy Glam (“eccentric makeup,” asymmetrical lobs, mismatched nails) and even brooches, showing up in searches for “shirts with lapels” and “maximalist jewelry.”

Pinterest says its predictions over the years have been 88% accurate and increasingly useful for marketers. It brags that Marriott Bonvoy, for example, harnessed the 2025 “Peak Travel” trend to reach high-intent travelers with a nature-inspired campaign that delivered a 15x lift in aided brand awareness compared to industry benchmarks.

Pinterest’s new shoppable pilot with Walmart pushes further into commerce. Users can now add ingredients from eligible recipe Pins straight to their cart by tapping a “Shop Ingredients” button — a move Pinterest describes as “wiring one of our highest-intent use cases directly into a major retailer’s cart, closing the loop between inspiration, product selection and checkout,” all powered by AI.

But even as Pinterest tries to turn anti-trend culture into an advertising advantage, analysts warn that AI could reshape the playing field. Wedbush downgraded the stock to neutral, citing tariff uncertainty and what it calls rising competitive risk from agentic commerce tools.

“AI-driven ad buying favors platforms with rich first-party purchase data and closed-loop conversion measurement,” writes analyst Scott Devitt. Pinterest "has improved its ability to collect and measure intent signals but still lacks full commerce visibility relative to key peers, limiting the effectiveness of its ad platform. Advertisers are reallocating dollars to top channels where AI can prove more effective to drive sales, not just engagement.”