6 Culture Trends Worth Watching: Madonna, Avengers: Doomsday, Million-Dollar Jackets, and More

TREND 1 / MUSIC / LEGACY ACTS

A Madonna Renaissance

Somehow, two things are true:

1. Madonna is back in the zeitgeist.
2. The year is 2026.

Over the past few weeks, Madonna has been the top artist trending on Reddit—and not for a tabloid scandal or a health scare, but for her music.

Among all legacy acts—that is, artists who released music before 1990—the queen of pop has seen the second-largest increase in monthly Spotify listenership in 2026.

The only singer to surpass Madonna in terms of newfound streaming interest is Michael Jackson, who is a) dead and b) the subject of an overwhelmingly sanitized biopic released this year.

Anyway, back to Madonna: how did a 67-year-old pop star find herself back in the cultural conversation? In short, she did the work.

Madonna has been on a press run for the ages in the lead-up to the release of her new dance album, Confessions II. The past few months have seen the ‘80s icon make a Coachella appearance with Sabrina Carpenter, perform at the World Cup halftime show, release a short film at the Tribeca Film Festival, stage an elaborate brand partnership with dating app Grindr, and mount several dance club pop-up performances.

The result has been a steady drumbeat of cultural interest, culminating in Confessions II debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart.

If there ever were a playbook for a cultural figure to reclaim their place in the zeitgeist—without releasing a derivative biopic—then Madonna may have executed on this roadmap to perfection.

TREND 2 / HOLLYWOOD / BUSINESS

Entertainment Industry Layoffs

There is no business like show business. Every year, tens of thousands of industry hopefuls—be they actors, aspiring executives, or prop department enthusiasts—descend upon Los Angeles with the hope of “making it.” And while Hollywood has always been a crapshoot, the degree to which the industry is a crapshoot can vary by the week.

During the streaming boom, Hollywood saw a period of sustained expansion unlike any other time in its history. And then the streaming bubble burst.

In early 2022, Netflix reported its first subscriber decline in more than a decade, sending its stock price tumbling over 50%. That disastrous earnings call, coupled with mounting concerns about inflation, convinced Wall Street that streaming’s era of boundless growth was over.

Since then, the industry has seen a litany of job cuts, including a Disney layoff two weeks ago that slashed hundreds of positions.

According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, LA entertainment employment peaked in 2023, before myriad layoffs and strikes sent this figure to a 30-year low.

And I’m sure you’re looking at this and thinking to yourself, “How can this get any worse?” Well, the answer is that it most certainly can (and will), assuming Paramount’s acquisition of Warner Bros. eventually goes through. Most likely, the numerous “synergies” between the two historic studios will yield more job loss when Warner-Mount inevitably needs to cut costs to pay back the oil magnates who financed the takeover.

I have no pithy joke to close this section; this simply stinks.

TREND 3 / TV / AWARDS

Do the Emmys Matter?

Open almost any streaming app, and you’ll be greeted by a glossy tile promoting that platform’s 2026 Emmy nominees. Year after year, HBO, Netflix, and Apple prominently showcase the programs recognized by television’s most prestigious awards show. Which raises an obvious question: do the Emmys matter?

The boring answer is yes. As long as streaming services continue touting their Emmy pedigree across digital banners and real-world billboards, this 77-year-old institution can plausibly claim cultural relevance.

However, the degree to which the Emmys ever mattered, and how that significance has changed over time, is far more debatable.

Over the past three decades, viewership for the Emmy Awards has fallen dramatically. Fewer people are watching the ceremony, though this broadcast has also followed the same downward trajectory as every live television event that is not American football.

Perhaps a better way to assess the Emmys’ relevance is to compare their cultural footprint with that of other major award shows. By this measure, television’s prestige celebration falls well behind the Oscars, the Grammys, and even the Golden Globes in both broadcast viewership and Wikipedia traffic.

To add insult to injury, the Emmys do not meaningfully increase viewership for the programs they honor.

Looking at the 2024–2025 crop of nominated shows, several programs entered Nielsen’s weekly Top 10 near the end of the Emmy eligibility window, when newer releases may benefit from recency bias among voters. Yet none of these shows returned to the chart immediately after nominations were announced or the ceremony aired.

For frame of reference, we often see Oscar nominees and winners hit the Nielsen charts following nomination announcements, with viewership spikes both before and after the televised broadcast.

There are, of course, other approaches to discerning relevance. But by the aforementioned metrics, the results are not promising.

That said, I’d prefer this awards show matter. Prestige—most readily conferred by way of a televised awards show—creates a positive network effect for all of television. If the awards don’t matter, then the incentive to create awards fodder goes away, which thoroughly undermines the existence of all HBO shows.

TREND 4 / MOVIES / MARKETING

Avengers: Doomsday Has Hit the Zeitgeist

The first Avengers film in over seven years is coming to theaters this December, which is exciting for those who still believe in the promise of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Marvel is pressing ahead with Doomsday despite a recent string of box-office disappointments among its non-Spider-Man releases, including The Fantastic Four and Captain America: Brave New World.

The first official trailer for Doomsday dropped in mid-July and saw mass coverage across a YouTube universe of fanboys (and fangirls!). The film is now the top-trending movie or TV show on YouTube, outpacing recent releases like The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day by orders of magnitude.

Upon further investigation, it appears this interest uptick was likely orchestrated by Marvel’s marketing team, as the July 21st trailer debut saw a combined 75 Doomsday-related videos grace YouTube’s top 200 list of trending videos, with the majority of these entries being fan reactions.

Marvel likely gave these influencers early access to the trailer and then coordinated the release of this content to hyper-saturate YouTube on a single day—which is just a smart promotional strategy (well done, corporate marketers!).

Any Avengers release would and should garner this level of fanfare, yet this particular campaign may require even more work on Disney’s part. In a fascinating game of release-date chicken, it appears this Avengers installment will hit theaters the same day as Dune: Part Three—which feels like it should be illegal but is not.

As such, Marvel must pull out all the stops to ensure its offering appears more interesting than Timmy Chalamet riding a sandworm. Either that, or they’re banking on a Barbenheimer-esque Dunesday crossover.

TREND 5 / MUSIC / COUNTRY

Choosin’ Texas

Country music is often portrayed as a genre that exists within its own cultural silo. That may have been true in the 1980s, but over the past three decades, country has steadily expanded its reach. The genre’s mainstream ascent has accelerated sharply in the past five years, as Beyoncé and Post Malone both released country albums, while Morgan Wallen has amassed the fifth-most entries in Billboard Hot 100 history. More than The Beatles!

The genre’s cultural dominance reached a new milestone this past spring with the phenomenal success of Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas,” which has spent 16 weeks (and counting) at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, outlasting recent releases from Olivia Rodrigo, Drake, and Future.

This longevity places “Choosin’ Texas” among the longest-reigning No. 1 hits in Billboard Hot 100 history, trailing only “Old Town Road,” “Despacito,” and “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”

Langley’s success offers yet another case study in country music’s remarkable mainstream rise. In 1980, country songs accounted for roughly 5% of the Billboard Hot 100. Today, they make up nearly 30% of the chart.

Country has firmly established itself as a dominant force in popular music, and if the charts are any indication, Ella Langley is not going anywhere anytime soon.

TREND 6 / CULTURE / AUCTIONS

The Jensen Jacket

Steve Jobs had his trademark turtleneck, Mark Zuckerberg had his hoodies, Elizabeth Holmes copied Steve Jobs’ wardrobe, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has his black leather jacket.

For some reason, humanity loves fetishizing the wardrobes of tech executives, as though a signature outfit might somehow confer superior business instincts. For proof of this sartorial obsession, look no further than a recent Sotheby’s auction featuring a leather jacket worn by Jensen Huang.

The Tom Ford jacket was initially valued at $60,000, which already seems excessive for an article of clothing that does not solve all your problems. Ten days and 65 bids later, Huang’s extremely normal black jacket sold for $960,000.

That price places the Nvidia CEO’s jacket in the pantheon of celebrity garments (that have also been auctioned off), alongside Michael Jackson’s Thriller jacket and Marilyn Monroe’s iconic “Happy Birthday” dress.

Among this distinguished collection of clothing, Huang’s jacket sold for the largest multiple of its presale estimate, fetching 16 times what Sotheby’s initially projected.

Unless the jacket possesses magical powers similar to the shoes in Like Mike, I’m comfortable saying the winning bidder overpaid.

Recommended Reads

📖 Curated Data Journalism

• A data-driven investigation into whether nepo babies really dominate pop music. [Can’t Get Much Higher]
• A visual breakdown of how prices have changed across every major category of American spending. [FlowingData]
• An interactive map of six decades of James Bond filming locations, landmarks, and lore. [Department M]
• An interactive map detailing sunshine levels around the world. [The Sunshine Map]
• A data-driven investigation into whether diverse casts actually boost a movie’s box office. [Stephen Follows]

🎭 Notable Culture Reads

• How IMAX accidentally made film projection a luxury good. [Gad Allon]
• Charli XCX has good taste; that has become her personal brand after Brat summer. [CNN]
• Why TV’s favorite opening—the shocking scene followed by “24 hours earlier”—has become an exhausted cliché. [Aftermath]
• How Hollywood press tours replaced real interviews with snack rankings, party games, and other algorithm-friendly content. [The Guardian]
• An ode to the American diner as a space for cheap coffee, pecan pie, and everyday equality. [The Common Reader]

Datasets

🔢 Unique Datasets

• Word Frequency Derived From the Subtitles Of 8,388 Films
• A Database of When Jump Scares Occur in Movies
• Luminate’s Mid-Year Report on the Data Underlying 2026’s Biggest Entertainment Trends
• Metacritic Album Scores (1999-2022)
• Chord Progressions Dataset for 666,000+ Songs That Includes Genre and Song Release Info
• Annual Survey Tracking AM/FM Radio Usage and the Sentiments of Radio Listeners (2018-Present)
• Broadway Attendance and Financials Database
• Anthony Bourdain Filming Locations, Includes Over 400 Sites
• Digitized Encyclopedia Britannica Archive
• UNESCO World Heritage Site List

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