The 2025 CBC Arts Trend Forecast heralded the return of the dumbphone, and if you didn’t swap your iPhone 17 Pro Max for a Motorola Razr, a lot of folks are convinced this will be your year.
Artists Leif Low-Beer and Lauren Pelc-McArthur say people will toss their devices in 2026, and Anna Binta Diallo, Amalie Atkins and Toronto industrial band Slash Need are convinced flip phones and landlines will achieve icon status. But a gadget upgrade (downgrade?) doesn’t address the root of the issue. We’re on our damned phones because we’re desperate to connect — with people, culture and any weird slop that entertains us.
Illustration by Franziska Barczyk
What could convince us to look away from the feed? Artists Laura Findlay and Maria Simmons believe people will be done with the fad consumerism driven by social media, and graphic designer Aless Mc hopes we’ll leave 2025’s TikTok covetables — “Labubus, Dubai chocolate and so forth” — on the trash heap of history. The emphasis on overconsumption has turned them off scrolling, and the sameness, the flatness, of what we’re seeing in our feeds is a major ick.
That problem applies to the streaming experience too. Have you ever opened up Netflix, only to groan when you see the series they think you care about? Artist Caitlind r.c. Brown and performer Srutika Sabu expect more people will break up with their subscription services in 2026.
In November, as everyone’s predictions were rolling in, Pope Leo (not a trend forecaster, please note) gave an address at the Vatican to filmmakers, actors and Hollywood execs. As he said in that speech, “The logic of algorithms tends to repeat what ‘works,’ but art opens up what is possible.”
People still want to find new music, movies, chili-crisp recipes — you name it! — but they’re tired of letting an app play gatekeeper. In her prediction for the must-have experience of 2026, Findlay reflected on one of her favourite discoveries, Dua Lipa’s Service95 Book Club, a phenomenon that harnesses the singer’s enormous community on social (88.8M on Instagram; 11.2M on TikTok).
As an international pop star, the “Levitating” singer seems like an untouchable figure, but it’s the intimate and innately human quality of the project — access to her opinions and insights — that gets people engaged. Findlay says she loved making trips to the library to borrow the club’s monthly picks, and she wasn’t the only artist who believes people will seek recommendations from an actual person who’s willing to share their passion and expertise.
Some trend forecasters mentioned a renewed love for over-the-air radio (coincidentally, in November, the New York Times declared college radio to be thriving against all odds). They want personalized movie recos, too, for titles you might not find on streaming.
Mitchell Cushman, artistic director of the Toronto theatre company Outside the March, predicts the rise of “video stores that curate content for you” in 2026. The era of the neighbourhood Blockbuster is dunzo, but Cushman says he’s noticing a lot of decision fatigue out there. (“I do know someone who gets hired every year to curate people’s TIFF screening list for them,” he says.)
In 2019, Outside the March staged a theatrical escape room in one of the former locations of Toronto’s Queen Video. The production, The Tape Escape, was a love letter to the lost art of browsing.
As Cushman explains, he had that show on his mind when he made his predictions for the Trend Forecast — and not an actual store he’s been frequenting. But as it happens, there are several shops keeping the ’90s dream alive, and they’ve survived because they offer what streaming and the algorithm can’t: human curation … and just a place to hang out.
The term “third spaces” gets thrown around a lot, and a new wave of video stores is providing just that: a place beyond the home where people can get together. Some are run as non-profits and community hubs.
Unlike the golden age of VHS, when you’d grab your stack of new releases and retreat to the solitude of your rec room, these stores host screenings and other public events. They’ve evolved in a way that fits our desire to cut back on scrolling, discover a new favourite — and spend some actual face time with fellow nerds.
We reached out to a few such places around the country. Read that story below.