Why everything will be romantic in 2026

Rosalia, Wuthering Heights, Bryan Johnson, and why we’re all yearning for more in a post-AI world.

Mark Twain famously said “history doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” As someone who works in the tech industry and spends way too much time online, every once in a while I need to take a step back for some perspective. It’s so easy to get caught up in building the future without any reflection or appreciation for the past.

Reflecting on the past year, I looked back at some moments that caught me by surprise.

Why did Frankenstein, a story that’s over two hundred years old, hit me harder than any film I’ve seen in years? Why have friends stopped listening to the full Brat album, but still have “party 4 u” in the rotation? Why is everyone so emotionally invested in Bryan Johnson’s love life, maybe even more than his longevity protocol?

In many ways the first half of the 2020s rhymed with the Enlightenment period of the 1700s, which paved the way for the Industrial Revolution. It was a shift towards mass industrialization: factories replaced craftsmanship, technology separated humans from nature, and art and writing felt overly formal, professional, and detached.

Sound familiar?

But as people got tired with the cold, restrictive, and in many cases dehumanizing values of the Enlightenment Period, there came a movement where romantic thinkers reclaimed emotion, creativity, and emphasized a way of life that embraced technology, but wasn’t obsessed with it.

As we look to 2026, there are many signs we’re heading into a similar romantic period with implications for every industry.

In the music industry, we’ve seen a mass industrialization where one song has so many writers, any hit song was likely written with another artist in mind, and the era of one hit wonders on TikTok doesn’t guarantee any sort of lasting career in the industry. In music, it’s become a numbers game where you need to write as many songs as possible and shop them around to see what gets picked up. In the mass industrialization of music, everyone is left craving the authenticity that used to exist in the industry. We’re seeing artists call out copycats and algorithm hackers ie: EsDeeKid recently called out the Chainsmokers for unauthorized use of his work and even Taylor Swift has been called out by critics and fans alike for her latest album. Authenticity and vulnerability has become increasingly rare in any industry where you’d expect a plethora of romantics.

If the end of 2025 is any sign of what’s to come, we will see artists like Rosalía who not only mix genres, but assembles a full orchestra and sings in 13 different languages, taking musical inspiration across the world, from Mexico to China.

When interviewed Rosalía said, “AI is nonexistent on this record. At one point I thought, let’s take advantage of the fact that it exists, let’s ask it to write a verse and see how it does. The result was disappointing. AI is very interesting, but for now, this album was made by humans.”

After a decade of mass industrialization in the film industry, Marvel continues to be the golden handcuffs and running joke in Hollywood. Every franchise is ultimately overplayed and eventually sees a well-funded, well-promoted, flop ie: Joker: Folie à Deux.

Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, and many main characters in the Marvel cinematic universe have carefully chosen the right role to transition back to major films after a fear that maybe that forgot their craft entirely ie: Oppenheimer for Downey Jr & Marty Supreme for Paltrow.

In the early 2020s, plots are dumbed down to be more “scrolling-friendly,” it’s no coincidence the most highly regarded film of 2025 (Frankenstein) and the most highly anticipated film of 2026 (Wuthering Heights) are both 300 page novels from the Romantic Period covering deep topics like unchecked ambition (playing God), isolation and the need for connection, and what it truly means to be human or a monster. All themes that are just as relevant today as they were over two hundred years ago.

In the era of AI-generated everything, the most memorable performances involve a more comprehensive approach to the process. The ten to eleven hour physical transformation, 42 pieces of prosthetics, unlearning how we move as humans and reconstructing a new physicality through butoh, the Japanese art form to develop a uniquely grotesque, yet beautiful movements. We are truly discovering what it means to be alive.

As an investor in early stage software companies, I’m not in the business of telling people what to build but I’m very much watching to see who deeply understands the world around them and builds technology with a fresh perspective and unique insight.

In 2025, it felt like the majority of companies missed the market from a design perspective. We live in a world of endlessly scrolling only a few feeds and the stark contrast between major world events and the bubbly, almost too cartoonish design choices from companies felt especially jarring.

While Adobe is predicting another year of maximalist, chaotic design choices, I’m optimistic the same romanticism we’re seeing across music, film, and other creative industries will extend into how we design technology products and digital universes.

We’ll evolve from big, bold, overly high energy, which feels AI-generated, to more calming, nostalgic, and emotionally triggering choices… in a good way :)

• Design choices that feel like a vacation, the antithesis of brain rot

• Subtle reminders that everything is art ie: why can’t sriracha be a font?

• Documenting your creative process is just as important as the finished work itself

“When a generation is overwhelmed with polish, and now slop, they crave things that were never meant to deceive. that never had an agenda.” cole

Here’s to a more romantic 2026! If you’re building something new this year, I’d love to chat. Please follow me on X @briannekimmel.